11 



RECONSTRUCTION" MESSAGES 



FROM A 



SEVENTH DAY BAPTIST PULPIT 



IN WAR. TIME 



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Book , 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 




AHVA JOHN CLARENCE BOND 



Reconstruction Messages 

from A 
SEVENTH DAY BAPTIST PULPIT 

IN WAR TIME 



BY 

Urn- Aljna 3Jnljtt (Ulavtntz Smtii, A. 4A. t $. 1 

Pastor of the 
Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church at Salem, W. Va. 



President of the War - Reconstruction Board 

(Serenth Day Baptist) 



PLAINFIELD, N. J.: 

AMERICAN SABBATH TRACT SOCIETY 

(Serenth Day Baptist) 

1919 






Copyrighted 1919 

American Sabbath Tract Society 

Plainfield. N. J. 



OEC 13 (919 



LA559056 

/wo / 



To the 

Members of the Congregation 

of the 

Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church 

This Volume of Sermons 

Is Gratefully Dedicated 



CONTENTS 



Dedication 3 

Foreword 5 

Food Saving 9 

Liberty Bonds and the Bonds of Liberty . 19 

Thanksgiving Sermon 2.7 

Christmas Sermon 39 

Christian Unity . 1. . . 49 

Seventh Day Baptists and the New World-Order 59 

For Their Sakes 7J 

Walk in Him 89 

The True Peace 99 

"Another Way" in 

A Denominational Building 123 

The Song and the Soil 135 

Mobilizing Our Young People for a World Crisis 149 



FOREWORD 

THE SERMONS that have been brought together 
in this volume were first preached, for the most 
part, to the Sabbath morning congregation of the Salem 
(West Virginia) Seventh Day Baptist Church, and 
during the period of the Great War. Without exception 
they have appeared in the Sabbath Recorder, and us- 
ually at the request of persons who heard them when 
first delivered. This appreciation, expressed by so 
many, has encouraged me to hope that they may pos- 
sess some merit. The unusual and strenuous condi- 
tions under which they were first given determines in 
most cases the character of the themes and gives them 
peculiar significance and value. Whether this value 
carries into the subject matter and treatment of the 
themes the reader must be left to judge. The fact 
that they appear here without revision accounts for 
the repetition in two or three instances of brief para- 
graphs. For this reason also there appears an oc- 
casional local or personal reference. 

Perhaps my reason for deciding to publish these 
sermons in this more permanent form is due to these 
four things : ( i ) Those who first heard them may find 
pleasure, and it is hoped some profit, in reading over 
in peace times sermons heard during anxious days of 
war; (2) Other friends of the author, in former pas- 
torates and elsewhere, may, because of personal 
friendship, appreciate a volume of his sermons; 
(3) It may be of interest and value in the future to 



know what one pastor and congregation were saying 
and thinking during the Great War; (4) It is hoped 
that the teachings in these sermons are so broad and 
sound, so thoroughly evangelical, and withal so for- 
ward-looking and constructive as to give them value 
in these reconstruction days. All the forces of Chris- 
tianity are needed to rebuild the social structure on a 
better foundation, in order that the race may never 
again be called upon to sutler the agonies of another 
such catastrophe, but may come more and more into 
that brotherhood which in Christ Jesus is made pos- 
sible, and which is the inspiring and glorious aim and 
goal of the Christian Church. 

Three or four of these sermons were prepared by 
special appointment and for specific occasions, which 
give them a more or less denominational bias. It is 
believed, however, that a careful reading will reveal 
the fact that while they are presented from a denom- 
inational viewpoint and as a message to the people of 
the author's own faith, nevertheless they are broadly 
Christian. It is the hope of the author, therefore, that 
this book may fall into the hands of many Christians 
of all faiths who shall find in it inspiration and help. 
If the knowledge of Sabbath truth as held by Seventh 
Day Baptists is extended thereby, and their position 
better understood, the author will be glad ; although it 
is not published as denominational propaganda, but as 
a contribution to that class of Christian literature, 
virile and timely but also reverently loyal to the Bible 
and to the best traditions of the Church, which these 
uncertain and strenuous times demand. 

I wish to record my grateful acknowledgment of 
the faithful and efficient service of Mr. Lucius P. 



Burch, Business Manager of the Publishing House of 
the American Sabbath Tract Society, in connection 
with the publication of this volume of sermons; and 
to my friend and former teacher, Professor C. R. 
Gawson, Librarian of Alfred University, for help in 
reading the proof and for valuable suggestions in 
regard to the make-up of the book. 

I can not refrain from recording a word of ap- 
preciation for the constant encouragement of my wife, 
especially in her sympathetic devotion to all the in- 
terests which we together try to serve. If this volume 
widens my ministry in any measure, she shares equally 
with me in the service rendered. 

Wfah a grateful heart that the conditions of war 
under which these sermons were preached has passed, 
it is my prayer that under the blessing of God we may 
make a better world, and my hope that these sermons 
may have some small part in helping the Christian 
forces of the country to meet the opportunities of the 
future. 

Ahva J. C. Bond. 

Wood-Hill Manse, Salem, W. Va., 
May 5, 1919. 



3faa& Pairing 



SALEM, W. VA. 
JUNE jo, 1917 



FOOD SAVING 

And it came to pass after a while, that 
the brook dried up, because there was no 
rain in the land, i Kings 17: 7. 

"T^ LI J AH is one of the most interesting and unique 
■*-' characters in Bible history. There is no attempt 
made in the sacred writings to give a complete biog- 
raphy of Elijah, but there is presented to the reader 
very vivid accounts of the most significant events in 
his active career. These epochal experiences reveal 
much in regard to the character of the prophet, and 
indicate the method by which his own life was de- 
veloped, and his program for the kingdom was ex- 
panded. Every Bible character may be profitably 
studied from at least two viewpoints. First, from 
the point of view of his own spiritual growth through 
his experiences, and second, from the point of view 
of his relation to the larger community interests, and 
of his influence upon the social order of his time, and 
consequently upon the religion of the race. It is not 
my purpose this morning to follow through the career 
of Elijah from either of these viewpoints. 

I wish to call attention to what seems to me to 
be a change of emphasis on the part of Elijah from a 
personal to a social religion ; from a religion wholly 
occupied by a zeal for the proper worship of Jehovah, 
to one in which the fundamental rights of humanity 
were held to be sacred and worth contending for with 
all the holy zeal of Jehovah's anointed. 



The first appearance of Elijah was to Ahab the 
king, and with the announcement that there would be 
a drought in Samaria of three-and-a-half year's dura- 
tion. And then he disappears among the ravines 
of his own native east Jordan region, where he was 
provided with bread and meat twice daily and with 
water from the mountain brook. "And it came to 
pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because 
there was no rain in the land. 

We believe that it was by the providence of God 
that Elijah was provided with food and drink. None 
the less by his providence was the brook dried up. 
It is easy to see the divine hand in the one ^ase, not 
so easy perhaps in the other. And yet by further 
reading and a little thought we may see the divine 
providence in the drying up of the brook. Had the 
stream flowed on beside which Elijah sat and from 
which he drank while the world outside was famishing 
for the want of water, we can not tell what smug 
exclusiveness and consequent loss of human sympathy 
might have resulted in the life of Elijah. 

But such are not the ways of Providence. The 
same laws by which the streams of Samaria were 
dried up operated in Gilead. The punishment visited 
upon the idolatrous king and his wicked queen af- 
fected not only the guilty royal pair, but their subjects 
as well, many of whom were loyal to Jehovah; and 
the prophet himself felt the pinch of the drought, 
"because there was no rain in the land." Elijah was 
driven out of his secure retreat, and the interested 
onlooker, who observed with supreme satisfaction the 
apostate king suffering the just penalty of his apostasy, 
became an enforced participant in the penalty, 
— the innocent suffering with the guilty. 

12 



Next we find him on- the opposite side of sun- 
parched Samaria, far from the solitary retreat of the 
uninhabited hills, at the very gate of the city where 
pass the multitudes. He begs the hospitality of a 
poor widow who is gathering two sticks with which 
to bake her last morsel of meal. In this experience 
with the hospitable woman of heathen Zarephath his 
heart seems to have been softened, his religion so- 
cialized, and his spirit made more magnanimous. 

Before proceeding to the practical application to 
our own times and conditions of this bit of experience 
from the life of the sturdy prophet, I wish to say 
again that what I see in the experience of Elijah is 
a change of emphasis from a personal to a social re- 
ligion, not a substitution of the one for the other. 
His faith in the one God was strengthened progress- 
ively, and in the presence of the still small voice there 
was a personal and holy communion never before 
enjoyed. But we see Elijah also more keenly alive 
to the interests of other people about him, and ready 
to uphold those principles of right and justice as be- 
tween man and man. He braves again the wrath of 
the king and queen as he in no uncertain tones de- 
nounces their perfidy in treacherously murdering 
Naboth in order that the king's whim might be grati- 
fied in the possession of the coveted vineyard. 

The practical use which I wish to make of the 
text, and the application of the deductions already 
drawn, are obvious, and have been discerned by you 
already. For two and a half years America, well fed 
and prosperous, looked upon the great war as Europe's 
punishment for her own sins. We were not uncon- 
cerned, but hoped for a speedy repentance in order 
that the awful waste of human life and treasure might 

13 



cease. Our complacency was such however that 
some of us began to fear lest our conscience should 
become calloused on account of our profits wrought 
out of Europe's suffering. Today, although the 
American people have not yet fully realized the awful 
fact, we have been caught in the full sweep of 
Europe's holocaust. 

Used as we have been to rest in the supposed 
security of our isolation between the oceans, quoting 
to ourselves Washington's memorable words regarding 
entangling alliances with Europe, conscious of designs 
on no other nation and of no ulterior motives of 
aggrandizement, the possibility of war has been given 
no place in our plans, national or personal. Today 
all our plans are subject to war's contingency. 

In view of all that is at stake, and of the great 
task confronting America and her allies, it sounds 
commonplace and prosaic to say that one of the places 
where most significant service can be rendered is in 
the kitchen. 

Herbert C. Hoover, food administrator, has ap- 
pealed to the housewives of the nation to join in a 
general movement to save the United States and its 
allies from possible starvation. He has also asked 
ministers to back up his appeal. He has requested 
every woman who handles food in the home to pledge 
herself to carry out "economy" directions and advice 
so far as circumstances permit. As to the manner 
in which the women can best serve the nation he lays 
down six principles, urging the saving of wheat by 
the substitution of cornmeal or other cereals; the 
saving of meat; the saving of fats; the increased use 
of fish, beans, cabbages and vegetables generally; the 
saving of freight transportation by the consumption 

14 



of local products as far as may be, and lastly the 
gospel of the clean plate and the lean garbage can. 
"We must enter a period of sacrifice for our country 
and for democracy," says Mr. Hoover. "Many must 
go into battle, but those who remain at home can 
serve by saving. Since food will decide the war, each 
American woman can do a real national service by 
protecting the food supply of the nation. An average 
saving of two cents on each meal every day for each 
person will save to the nation for war purposes two 
billion dollars a year." 

The call is for a "clean plate and a lean garbage 
can." Our children should eat up the food that is 
put on their plates. I used to have to do that as a 
boy and there was no war on then either. We need 
but to get back to the more frugal days of our mothers. 
People should consume the products raised in their 
own community. Mr. Hoover recommends this be- 
cause it will save freight. It will leave food that 
would be shipped in, for consumption elsewhere, and 
will make a home market for the vegetables that are 
being grown in greater quantities in the surrounding 
neighborhoods than in any previous year. 

Thank God the glory and glamour of war has 
been banished to the limbo of hades. The only 
rewards in this struggle will be the rewards that come 
with a consciousness of sacrifice in a good cause. 
Such honors are not emblazoned on escutcheons nor 
proclaimed from the house top. They are the adorn- 
ment of the modest: the embellishment of lives unob- 
trusively lived, but serviceful. 

The blight of war is upon the nations of the 
earth. The issues involved are as far-reaching as 
humanity, and the blessings of the ends sought overlap 



the bounds of time. It is not therefore simply at the 
behest of Mr. Hoover or the suggestion of the Presi- 
dent that this matter is presented from this sacred 
desk this morning. Save the waste and win the war 
is a watchword worthy to be proclaimed from every 
pulpit of America because our motives are unselfish 
and our opportunity to serve humanity is the biggest 
that a nation ever faced. If we can meet the demands 
now upon us in the true spirit of service we will there- 
by work out our own salvation while doing the most 
possible for the salvation of mankind. 

How it fills with new significance our commonest 
daily tasks to feel that in saving one slice of bread we 
are sharing the sacrifice of those who go to the front 
and are shortening the time they must stay in the 
trenches. Lives will be saved, possibly the life of 
your boy, if not, certainly some mother's son, by the 
daily economy you practice in your home; and it is 
but the spirit that a Christian should always take into 
his toil. We denounce the selfishness of him who 
prays, "O Lord, bless me and my wife, my son John 
and his wife, us four and no more." But this has a 
wider application than we have given it. Liberty H. 
Bailey has said, "To love and to work is to pray." 
One may dwarf his own soul in hoeing potatoes in 
a selfish spirit. He may also by the same humble 
occupation expand his own life through a conscious 
world-service. 

This is the duty I would lay upon you all this 
morning, and especially upon the housewives of the 
congregation, "Save the waste and win the war." N© 
one should go unnourished or ill-fed. That is not 
economy, and is not what the President asks. Eat 
enough, but not too much, and save the waste. 

$6 



The German Kaiser is the Ahab of our time 
whose covetous designs curse the earth. Let no one 
be content to sit idly down and drink from secret 
springs, fed by winged waiters of our own happy 
good fortune, while our fellow-beings, many of whom 
have not bowed the knee to the Baal of autocracy, 
fight for us the battle against militarism. Let us 
do, not our bit, but our best in field or kitchen, or 
wherever it may be, and have a part in extending in 
the earth the principles of democracy, which is 
religion. 



17 



Sttertg Sonite an& ttj? Itottto of Ctberig 



SALEM, W. VA., 
OCTOBER 20, 1917 



LIBERTY BONDS AND THE BONDS 
OF LIBERTY 

Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Ye 
have not hearkened unto me, to proclaim 
liberty, every man to his brother, and 
every man to his neighbor. Jeremiah 
34: 17a. 

A TEMPERANCE LECTURER who visited 
•*■*• Salem some years ago began his address by say- 
ing that he had five reasons for opposing the saloon. 
Then he named his five children. I think I made 
reference to this instance some weeks ago, when 
preaching a food conservation sermon, and stated that 
on that basis we had five reasons for conserving food 
during the war. On that same basis today we have 
nine reasons for buying Liberty Bonds, for today we 
have nine members enlisted in some branch of the 
national army. 

Of course Clinton Howard had other reasons for 
advocating prohibition but they were all strengthened 
by his viewpoint as a father of children whose future 
he wished to secure against the curse of rum. It 
was not only a good starting point for his discussion, 
but it furnished an angle from which to fight the liquor 
traffic from that day to this with a zeal and effective- 
ness which has won for him the significant sobriquet 
of "The Little Giant." 

The fact that nine of our members are in the 
training camps does not contribute the fundamental 

21 



reason for our supporting the second Liberty Loan, 
but it may well serve to make more pointed my ap- 
peal from this pulpit this morning. 

There are certain legitimate reasons commonly 
given for buying a Liberty Bond, (i) Any system by 
which something is laid up for the future makes for 
a stable financial condition, and becomes a wholesome 
economic safeguard, (2) A 4 per cent, non-taxable 
government bond is a good investment, (3) Each com- 
munity should secure its share of the bonds in order 
to get its share of the income from the government's 
revenues, which all are paying. 

But these with many other reasons have been 
thought out by you. There are plenty of good bus- 
iness men in the congregation to whom I refer any 
one seeking advice along these lines. You do not 
wish me to discuss such commonplaces this morning. 
The statements made are reasonable, no doubt, and 
the pulpit must be in harmony with reason, but there 
should be in a sermon a heart appeal also. 

The one who believes in the church and is jealous 
for its power and influence, has observed with satis- 
faction our government's repeated appeals to the 
churches in this time of her great distress. 

I take this to be a recognition of the fact that no 
other organization is so close to the people in America. 
In no way can the people of our country be reached 
in so effective a manner as through the churches. 
This is something for which to be grateful. It should 
be a cause, also, for serious reflection on the part of 
the church, — stimulating her to a sincere purpose and 
to a renewed effort to render the high service de- 
manded by this evident confidence. 

The interest of the church in this Liberty Loan 



22 



is due to the moral principles and spiritual conse- 
quences involved in this war. We can not compre- 
hend the horror of the war. And to these horrors 
the conscience of America must not be seared. One 
service of the church is to make sure that war shall 
not be glorified in the minds of our youth. There 
is nothing about war itself that is elevating. We see 
already its baneful influence upon public standards of 
morality. To mention, not the worst, perhaps, but 
the most recent evidence in my own experience, I 
have just received a communication from the editor 
of a magazine which to my mind is a reflection upon 
our civilization and an affront to the Christian Church. 
The publishers of this popular magazine seem to think 
that the highest service that can be rendered to a 
blinded and armless dying soldier is to see to it that 
the last snatches of air that enter his broken body 
shall be saturated with the fumes of the cigarette, 
and vitiated by its insidious poison. I know that is 
not a pleasant topic nor one calculated to fan cur 
patriotism. But I say it here lest I shall seem to 
condone at this time those things which in normal 
times I would condemn. Now, of all times, the 
church must ring true on all moral questions. Unless 
we can hold up before our boys in training camp and 
in trench the white life of the Master, the church 
can not support the country in this war. 

War is not a legitimate vocation, necessary to 
the progress of the race. It is an evil which must 
be eradicated. It is because this war is a war against 
war that the churches are supporting it, and must sup- 
port it in every way possible until victory is won. 
The stimulating cry of every khaki-clad American 
soldier as he bravely meets the enemy must be, "Never 

23 



again, never again." This war must be the last. 
That is why every proposal of peace on the basis of 
the status quo antebellum must be denied. 

Certain things have gotten in the way of human 
progress. Obstructions have been thrown athwart 
the path of civilization. These obstacles to national 
autonomy and to human liberty must be removed, and 
this is the great task in which we are engaged, to- 
» gether with the other democratic nations of the world. 

The cry of the prophet in condemnation of Israel 
rings out today, and with a broader application than 
Jeremiah gave to his messages. "Brother" and 
"neighbor" were words of restricted meaning in the 
days of the prophets. But these exclusive terms were 
made inclusive by the Master. He defined his breth- 
ren as those who do his will. When asked by the 
lawyer who his neighbor was, he told the parable of 
the Good Samaritan, which taught the duty of neigh- 
borliness to those in need. We are carrying the "big 
brother" idea into international relations. We were 
censured by other nations for not declaring war 
against Germany immediately upon the violation of 
Belgium, and have been accused of waiting until our 
own rights were invaded and our own citizens were 
slain. It would be easy to draw a wrong conclusion 
from a superficial survey of the facts. No doubt our 
delay was due largely to the fact that it took America 
so long to realize and comprehend the unmitigated 
perfidy and the malicious treachery of the German 
Government. I have recently reviewed the diplomatic 
correspondence of Great Britain just before the out- 
break of the war three years ago. One hundred and 
fifty-nine messages flashed back and forth in less 
than a fortnight between England and the courts of 

24 



the various nations involved. Rereading these dis- 
patches in the light of the developments of the last 
three years makes clear the designs of the Central 
Powers, and as clearly vindicates the Allies. The 
sacrifice called for in this fight is without parallel in 
human history. Only one goal can be commensurate 
with the cost, democracy for the world. And some 
progress is being made. Mr. Nicholas Romanoff may 
now be photographed sitting on a stump instead of on 
his throne. Constantine has vacated the throne of 
Greece forever. Restored Belgium will be more 
democratic than ever before. It is another George 
than the one who wears the crown that rules the 
people of England. Lloyd George rules because 
he expresses the voice of the people, and he will have 
to keep his ear a little closer to the ground or he will 
lose out. There is a rumbling and a muttering heard 
in England today because the people are supplied with 
rum and not bread. 

Our President, in avowing our purpose to be to 
make the world safe for democracy, has set a goal 
that appeals to the highest motives of the American 
heart. In refusing to negotiate peace with any one 
but the direct representatives of the people of the 
enemy nations, he has set the standard higher than 
the Allies would have dared to place it. The people 
of America must see to it that our country holds her- 
self true to these high aims so well expressed by her 
noble President. Let us help our nation and her 
Allies win this war. Let us support our government 
in this her day of severest trial. Let us seek to 
carry on this war in such a way as to reduce its evil 
to a minimum. Let us back our government in its 
demand for such terms of peace as shall make future 

25 



wars forever impossible. These are the duties of the 
hour. 

But when the world has been made safe for de- 
mocracy, the obligation is still upon us to make de- 
mocracy safe for the world. Hardly a less task than 
the one now upon us. 

The war will be over some day. Peace will be 
declared, when swords will be beaten into plowshares 
and spears into pruning hooks, which, being in- 
terpreted is, Trenches shall be turned into truck gar- 
dens, and war vessels into merchantmen. 

Let us do what we can to hasten that day. And 
as churches let us generate and release those spiritual 
forces that shall rebuild the waste places of the earth, 
and gather the nations at the foot of the cross of 
Jesus, to leave there the crushing burden of hate. 
The church must exemplify the spirit of her Lord, for 
in him alone, incarnate in human life, is the power 
to make of all races of man one brotherhood. 



26 



®fyattk*3ttrittg £>*rmim 



SALEM BAPTIST CHURCH 

UNION SERVICES 

NOVEMBER 2Q, iqi? 



THANKSGIVING SERMON 

Then on that day did David first 
ordain to give thanks unto Jehovah. 
i Chronicles 16: J. 

/ T*HE words of my text have reference to a thanks- 
■*■ ■ giving day in ancient Israel, set apart by King 
David, and participated in by all the tribes of Israel 
at the new capitol in Jerusalem. The immediate 
occasion of this national thanksgiving was the bring- 
ing of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah from its 
precarious wanderings to its abiding place on Mt. Zion. 
It was therefore not only a national holiday, it was a 
time for praise and thanksgiving, a time for religious 
exultation and joy. From the time of Moses the ark 
was the symbol of the presence of Jehovah. It con- 
tained the tablets of the law which testified of the 
ethical character of the God of Israel, and its presence 
in their midst was to these primitive, Oriental Hebrews 
the assurance of the presence and blessing of God. 

The ark went before them during all the years 
of their wilderness wandering. Borne by the priests, 
it drove back the waves of the Jordan that the tribes 
might pass over. It led the procession about the walls 
of Jericho until these walls fell to the ground. 

During the time when the Judges judged, the ark 
had been carried about from place to place, its pres- 
ence proving a curse to the enemies of Jehovah who 
held it, and a blessing to those who received it in 
reverent spirit, and who recognized its sacred char- 

29 



acter. But for a number of years during the reign 
of Saul, the ark had been relegated to an indifferent 
place in the life of Israel, or was wholly forgotten by 
those in authority. And religion no longer occupied 
a fundamental place at the heart and center of Israel's 
national life. One of the first acts of the new king- 
was to erect a tent on a suitable site in Jerusalem, 
and with appropriate ceremony, to bring to this new 
capitol the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. And that 
day was a day for thanksgiving on the part of Israel, 
for not only were the tribes bound together under the 
brave King David, but they were reunited to the God 
of their fathers. 

The source and center of all their thanksgiving 
was the ark which symbolized the immediate and 
sacred presence of Jehovah. 

With this ancient thanksgiving day of Israel as 
a starting point, I wish to bring together some 
thoughts helpful to a proper observance of our na- 
tional Thanksgiving Day in this year of our Lord 
nineteen hundred seventeen. Our President, like 
David of old, has called upon the people of the nation 
to meet today to give reverent and hearty thanks to 
Almighty God for the blessings vouchsafed to his 
people. 

The first Thanksgiving Day in Colonial New 
England was set apart with a purpose, and was ob- 
served in a spirit, wholly religious. And every 
Thanksgiving proclamation since has had for its pur- 
pose the calling of the people together in religious 
assembly. 

I fear its observance by the American people has 
not been as consistently religious as have these proc- 
lamations. Our dominant spirit of irreverence makes 

30 



an atmosphere unfriendly to a serious, devout and 
prayerful use of the day. Our newspapers which con- 
fessedly make no attempt at educating public senti- 
ment, but claim only to reflect it, sometimes call it 
"Turkey Day." Does this mean that the stomach of 
the average American, and not his heart, furnishes his 
motive of action and determines the use he shall make 
of a holiday, even one appointed for religious uses? 
Another appropriate designation growing out of the 
uses to which the day is put, especially by many of our 
leading colleges, would be "Football Day." 

I suppose we ought to be able to gather about 
the table the center of whose steaming viands is a 
big well-cooked turkey and still subordinate the ap- 
petite to the more spiritual enjoyment of friendships. 
Also, some part of the day might be given to clean 
sport, free from commercialism. But it" will be well 
for us all to look each into his own heart today and 
see what it is in a Thanksgiving Day celebration that 
touches the most responsive chord in our lives. To 
some this may seem an appropriate time to come to- 
gether for prayer, but not for thanksgiving. Rather 
should we assemble for humiliation, for confession and 
for intercession. Many may have asked themselves 
as the thanksgiving season approached and as thfs day 
dawned, "What have we as a people to be thankful 
for?" 

Our day of thanksgiving has been set in the 
autumn time because then the crops have been gath- 
ered ; and it is essential to the very origin and history 
of the day that thanks shall' be given for the harvest 
that has been reaped and is now stored in cellar and 
barn. Our harvests have been abundant this year, 
but can we be grateful for that, when they are being 

31 



consumed in war and by nations across the sea, for 
whose prosperity heretofore we have felt no responsi- 
bility ? 

It is the genius of Thanksgiving Day, also, that 
it shall be observed as a family day. From the days 
of our New England forefathers, it has been a time 
for the children to come back home and for the grand- 
children to gather at grandfather's house, when the 
day is spent in happy recognition of the blessing of 
home ties and family kinship. 

Today in a million homes there is a vacant chair, 
and the uncertainty of the future gives rise to fore- 
bodings which settle down like a pall over the family 
festal board. Will not our family thanksgiving be 
stifled by memories of the boys in training camps, on 
the treacherous bosom of old ocean, or in the French 
battle line? 

Another topic which is wont to inspire our 
thanksgiving prayer is the peace of the nation. Com- 
paratively few is the number of those who can remem- 
ber the dark days of our Civil War. Thank God they 
have been only a memory for more than fifty years. 
For half a century they have but served to heighten 
our joy and to increase our thankfulness for a free, 
united and peaceful country. 

The Spanish-American War caused scarcely a 
ripple on the peaceful waters of our national life, 
and the Mexican situation has been but a series of 
bubbles on their placid surface. Today the war cloud, 
seen more than three years ago in the Eastern sky, 
at first as big as a man's hand, has enveloped the earth, 
and has settled down black and heavy over our fair 
land. As we assemble today in our places of wor- 
ship in city and village, on hilltop and in valley, on 

32 



the plain and by country crossroads, what have we as 
a nation to be thankful for? 

I realize that in this negative outline I have set 
myself a task difficult to perform. To raise such 
questions as these and to provoke such thoughts as 
have stirred you in these moments would be unworthy 
of a minister, if he can give no satisfactory answer to 
his own questions, and has no assuring word of hope 
for the feelings of apprehension which he may have 
aroused. 

If I fail, the failure will be due to my own in- 
ability to state the truth as it is, and will not be be- 
cause the times are not full of reasons for devout 
gratitude. I proceed on the premise that there are 
things more precious than food, or home or country. 
And back of and beyond these may be seen the fringe 
which betrays the silver lining, even in the present 
war cloud. 

In David's day it was the ark of the covenant of 
Jehovah that aroused the emotions of joy and feelings 
of gratitude, rather than a condition of peace or of 
temporal prosperity, for these did not exist. And 
always that condition which brings God nearest to man 
is the one which calls for profoundest gratitude. 

I am not sure but that our thanksgiving has been 
superficial because we have been content to appropri- 
ate to ourselves blessings which have cost us nothing, 
and have forgotten that others paid the price. We 
may preface our thanksgiving today with a season of 
sincere humiliation and confession. In fact this 
should be the spirit which underlies all our worship 
of praise and thanksgiving. 

I am glad that we can not say today as we have 
often said in our praying: "God, we thank thee that 

33 



while other nations are at war, thou hast kept our 
country in peace." We have too often prayed that 
prayer in the spirit of the Pharisee who thanked God 
that he was not as others, and we have received the 
Pharisee's reward. 

We have passed the day of our provincialism. 
The arteries of commerce that bind us to other nations 
of earth can not be severed without causing great 
suffering and distress. But more than that, the spirit 
of justice, so long fostered among us, forbids our 
passing by on the other side while an innocent nation 
lies crushed and bleeding under the feet of a giant 
foe. Let us thank God that no nation can make war 
on another without affecting the prosperity and threat- 
ening the peace of all nations. This fact does but 
witness to the intimate relationship among modern 
nations. And when that vital intimacy is fully 
realized the best brain and heart of all the nations will 
be set to work to make international relationship not 
only tolerable but mutually helpful. 

Can we give thanks to God today then for abund- 
ant harvests, much of which must be shipped to for- 
eign shores to maintain armies engaged in a European 
imbroglio— if indeed it is not fed to the fishes by an 
enemy submarine? This war is not Europe's war. 
War can no longer be localized either in the devasta- 
tion wrought by it, or in its root causes. We have 
arrived at that place in human history where every 
war is a world war. Let us give thanks to God for 
abundant crops, for in our thanksgiving there is a 
new note which never was before in all history. Not 
only does our food go to feed fighting men but to help 
dependent families, and the innocent sufferers of mad- 
ened men's brutal hate. This were a high and un- 

34 



selfish service to render ; but more than that, American 
wheat today not only supports life, but maintains 
ideals and makes surer the triumph of right, which is 
necessary to a lasting and world-wide peace. I 
venture the statement therefore that not since the days 
of Governor Bradford has a Thanksgiving Day been 
observed more in the spirit of the first Thanksgiving 
Day than this one. For we have been made to see 
as never before since that day how dependent we are 
upon one season's crops. Thank God today for grain 
and fruit in bin and barrel, sufficient to help in this 
hour of mankind's great need. 

And what about our homes? Will there be no 
voice of thanksgiving for home blessings, because a 
khaki-clad boy, somewhere in France, or in America, 
eats army fare instead of enjoying the feast that 
loving hands would delight to serve? You did not 
raise your boy to be a soldier? Thank God for that. 
But that privilege was yours because other mothers 
in days that are passed gave their sons to their country. 

There are boys today dying on the sodden fields 
of Flanders and in blood-soaked Alpine snows who 
were raised to be soldiers, and that is their misfor- 
tune and not their fault. Your boy has linked his 
life with the forces of earth which would make it 
possible not only for free nations to continue in peace, 
but for military-ridden people to throw off the shackles 
of their unconscious but blighting slavery, and enjoy 
with you the blessings of peace which are for all man- 
kind. The burden of your prayer today will be that 
peace may speedily come, and that your boy may come 
back to you clean and strong. But you will not forget 
to thank God for the home, and for family ties that 
absence can not sever. But recently I read a letter 

35 



from one of these boys to his parents. He said: "I 
suppose if we whip the Kaiser, and we will, we boys 
will all be hailed as heroes, but for my part I am 
willing to give the honor to the fathers and mothers, 
and to my Father and Mother first of all." 

Thank God today for a home that can send out 
a boy like that. Whether he be here or there it matters 
little when such sentiments fill his heart and motive his 
life. The tilings of the Spirit are the things that are 
worth while and that endure. Many a son may eat at 
his father's table today and they experience little more 
pleasure than pigs thrown jowl by jowl in a trough. 

We will be thankful for our homes today, and 
our thanksgiving will be marked by an unwonted sin- 
cerity and genuineness. The prayer of thanks from 
the absent boy will be joined at the throne of Heaven 
by the thanks of the folks at home, and the angel of 
light will bear back to earth the multiplied blessings of 
Heaven. 

If we can not be grateful today for national 
peace we may be thankful that the democratic nations 
of the world have been undeceived, and are no longer 
crying peace when there is no peace. To be able to 
see clearly the complex elements of an involved sit- 
uation is to go a long way towards its solution. We 
see more clearly than we ever did before that the 
problems of one community are the concern of the 
world. The sin of one race brings suffering to all. 
No nation can continue to be blessed that does not 
share its prosperity and its ideals with the impover- 
ished and sterile nations of the earth. 

The growth of ideals involves pain, and the gen- 
eration that gives birth to a new and better social 
order, suffers the inescapable birth pangs. A new 

36 



internationalism is being born out of the present world 
agony, an internationalism more consonant with the 
spirit of Christ, mankind's elder brother. 

The following verses indicate something of the 
war's recompense. They were found on an Australian 
soldier, who died in France unidentified: 

"Ye that have faith to look with fearless eyes 

Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife, 

And know that out of death and night shall rise 

The dawn of ampler life, 

Rejoice, whatever anguish rend the heart, 

That God has given you a priceless dower, 

To live in these great times and have your part 

In freedom's crowning hour, 

That ye may tell your sons who see the light, 

High in Heaven — their heritage to take — 

'I saw the power of Darkness put to flight, 

I saw the Morning break.' " 

The center of Israel's thanksgiving service was 
the ark of God, and that service was entered upon 
only when all the tribes had been asked to join. The 
reborn nation of Israel was called together to give 
thanks because the symbol of God's presence had 
found a resting place among men. 

And this very fact which they celebrated was the 
occasion of that new birth. 

Never before in the history of the world has a 
nation gone to war with such clearly defined and holy 
motives as those which, voiced by her noble President, 
have called America to arms. The objects sought 
parallel in character and far outreach in ultimate aim, 
the purposes of the crusaders of the middle ages, the 
Covenanters of Cromwell, or the patriots of Valley 
Forge. We are not thankful today for war. War is 
a curse and a blight; a block to civilization and a 
denial of Christianity. It is an evil which must be 
banished from the earth and driven back to Hades 

37 



where it belongs. We do not thank God for war. 
Our God is not a God of war. We worship not 
Mars, but God the Father, our Lord and Savior, 
Jesus Christ, who came to bring peace to earth. We 
are not thankful for war, but we are thankful that 
since war was forded upon peaceful peoples, our 
nation with all its resources and with its life blood is 
battling not for territory or commercial prestige, but 
for justice and freedom and peace. 

It stirred our hearts to read the words of 
Pershing as he stood at the grave of that French 
patriot who nobly fought for American liberty, 
"Lafayette, here we are." Thus does the spirit of 
freedom live in accelerative power, and make its way 
through the generations and through the nations. 
Thank God today that this spirit lives and is destined 
to cover the earth. 

Let us thank God the ark of his covenant rests 
in our midst. The marvel of this war is the place 
in cantonment, in trench and in hospital, taken by the 
Christian forces of America. If the war in Europe 
is an evidence of a breakdown of Christianity, it is 
the breakdown of a Christianity falsely so called. On 
the contrary, there never was given such an oppor- 
tunity to demonstrate to the whole world the power 
of a vital Christianity to heal and to hearten a broken 
and depressed humanity. The Christian forces of 
America are looked to and trusted at this hour as 
never before. And the church, feeling her own in- 
sufficiency, is receiving a new baptism of power. 
Christ is being exalted and men are seeing in him 
their only and sufficient hope. These are things for 
which America, and the world may be devoutly 
thankful. 

38 



flUfriatma* ftmtum 



SALEM, W. VA., 
DECEMBER 22, 1917 



CHRISTMAS SERMON 

And of his kingdom there shall be no 
end. Luke 1 : 33b. 

'T^ODAY we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of 
-*■ the Prince of Peace, while millions of mankind are 
enthralled in the Great War, which negatives every 
sentiment of brotherhood. We hearken to the song 
of the angels, hovering over the plains of Bethlehem, 
and their heavenly anthems are drowned by the moan 
of mothers and the cry of children, the greatest suf- 
ferers of the awful conflict. We lift our eyes to look 
upon the pastoral picture of the peaceful shepherds 
and their silent sheep on the hills of Judea, and get 
instead a vision of dying men, and human bodies 
bullet-maimed and "Bleeding. We pause to catch the 
fragrance of frankincense, the gift of the wise men 
of the East to the new-born King, and breathe instead 
deadly gases, the latest and most inhuman of all war's 
horrible instruments of destruction. 

Men are saying, "Christianity has failed, and the 
civilization she has been building for centuries has 
collapsed." Many have become skeptical: skeptical 
of a God who would permit such havoc of human 
hopes and ideals ; skeptical of the race that with such 
slight provocation could revert over night to cruel 
barbarism. But in an atmosphere thus surcharged 
by the strife of arms and by the clash of conflicting 
ideals, the Christian minister dares to bring a message 

41 



of peace, founded on the prophecy of the angel, and 
grounded in the life of Mary's Son. 

"And of his kingdom there shall be no end!' 

At the time when the angel made this announce- 
ment, history had recorded the rise and fall of many 
nations. The theocratic kingdom of Israel had been 
rubbed off the map, and her people dispersed and 
expatriated. Judah was but an insignificant province 
of the Roman Empire. The Imperial City by the 
Tiber already bore the seeds of decay in its selfish 
seeking after material splendor and sensual pleasure. 
In the midst of such surroundings of decayed and 
tottering empires, the heavenly messenger whispered 
into the heart of a pure woman, a lowly dweller of 
the hills, this wonderful prophecy, freighted with tre- 
mendous significance for the world : "And behold thou 
shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and 
shall call his name Jesus, . . . and of his kingdom 
there shall be no end." 

We must not forget that while the Great War 
occupies the front pages of our newspapers as the one 
topic of world-wide and absorbing interest, there are 
other mighty forces at work in the world. There 
is danger that the present necessary war preparations 
shall lead to an exaggerated conception of the strength 
of military equipment and physical force, and shall 
result in a corresponding minimizing of the things of 
the spirit. 

This is an opportune time to contemplate the 
unique and significant revelation of God in Jesus 
Christ. 

The coming of the Heavenly King two thousand 
years ago was attended by misunderstandings on the 

42 



part of the religious leaders, and these misconcep- 
tions have been perpetuated through the centuries. 
Jesus declared that the kingdom of heaven comes not 
by observation, and still men proclaim it as the most 
practical service of the church to preach the early 
return of her Lord. 

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world," 
but yet there are men who exalt science, who worship 
world power, and who make mechanical perfection 
and material efficiency the test of civilization. When 
the Lord shall come, or whether he will ever come in 
the manner described by the millennialists, I can not 
say, I do not know. This I know, our lives should 
be lived always as under his inspection, and our tasks 
subject at all times to interruption by the divine sum- 
mons. To set a time for his return and to direct our 
thoughts to its consummation, would seem to me to 
interfere with a wholesome and stimulating conscious- 
ness of his presence here and now. Some have the 
feeling that his physical presence would bring relief 
to the burdened world, and would usher in a time of 
peace. It seems to me to be more in accord with the 
teachings of Scripture, and to furnish a more practical 
viewpoint for the Christian, as well, to exalt the as- 
cended Christ and to recognize his guiding hand now 
in the world's affairs. The birth of Jesus at Beth- 
lehem, and his life lived in the flesh, was but tempo- 
rary and accommodative. Its purpose was to reveal 
God in terms of human life, in order that we might 
know him, and knowing him we might have life in 
his name. Jesus felt that his physical body circum- 
scribed and restricted his powers; and only when he 
had departed from his disciples, and the Holy Spirit 
had come, would the full ministry of his kingdom be 

43 



operative. Jesus eame, and lived his life, and went 
away again, that the Spirit might take the things of 
himself and make them known unto us. "Greater 
things than these shall ye do," Jesus said, "because 
I go to my Father." Christians should devote them- 
selves to a restudy of his life, and should look to the 
Holy Spirit to reveal the truth and to send them out 
into this present world to do the "greater things." 

The present revival of interest in the second com- 
ing of Jesus, is the answer of a certain type of 
Christian leader to the indictment of the church, 
brought against it on account of the war. They fit 
this war into God's plan, and promise its termination 
by a prearranged and timely interposition of his 
power. This is my faith rather: Jesus Christ,- the 
invisible King, has been given all power in heaven 
and on earth, as he himself testifieth, and no event can 
add to that which is already complete. But in this 
earth he works through men. Men have made a 
bad mess of things, but for this Jesus is not to blame. 
Robert E. Speer said the other night, in my hearing, 
"You say the church could have prevented this war. 
The church was not consulted. So could chloroform 
have prevented it, if it had been administered to the 
right persons. The trouble is," he continued, "neither 
chloroform nor Christianity is self-administrative." 
There is the point, Christianity is not self-administra- 
tive. We have waited too long already for some 
miraculous interference in the world order to bring 
it healing. What we need to do is to release the di- 
vine forces already present in the world, sufficient for 
every human ill, including war. Has Christianity 
failed? If Christianity has failed, certainly every- 
thing else has failed. And this, too, when we have 



trusted other forces and relied upon other agencies 
to the neglect of Christianity. Education has failed, 
and commerce has failed, and humanitarianism has 
failed. We thought the nations were too intelligent 
to go to war; that ties of commerce would bind us 
together in an unbreakable fellowship; and that inter- 
racial appreciations would avail to insure peace. All 
these we have trusted, and at this Christmas time the 
world is involved in the greatest war of all history. 

But Christianity is the only agency that has been 
held to be responsible for the war. In our feverish 
impatience we have found fault only with Christianity, 
for not saving us from this collapse of civilization. 
And strange as it may seem on first thought, this fact 
is the most encouraging sign in these distressing times. 
Like the man who is suffering from a nervous break- 
down, and who finds most fault with those upon 
whom he depends most, so this faultfinding of Chris- 
tianity but witnesses to the fact that it is our dearest 
possession and the ultimate support of all our hopes. 
It goes to show that down in our hearts we know 
that there is only one thing that can prevent war, and 
that is a regenerate life, individual and national. 
When the peoples of the earth have realized that fact, 
as they are being driven to do, then the Christianity 
of Jesus will have a chance, and the kingdom of God 
will come. 

"And of his kingdom there shall be no end/' 

Thus far we have spoken of the nature of the 
kingdom, and the manner in which it is to be brought 
in. There is another phase of the subject which can 
not be ignored in the treatment of the text, and which 
is made intensely practical in view of the tremendous 

45 



loss of life in this war. That is, the bearing of the 
promise in the text upon the future life. Sir Oliver 
Lodge's book, "Raymond, or Life and Death," in 
which he records a series of efforts to get in com- 
munication with his son Raymond, a young lieutenant 
who was killed in France; and the recent conversion 
of no less a person than A. Conan Doyle to Spiritual- 
ism, give evidence of an interest in a future existence, 
heightened by the fact that millions of young lives 
are being called thither. 

One of the crying demands of our human life 
spent in a passing world is permanence. We seek 
for something enduring, something that will transcend 
sense and outlast time. This divinely implanted 
desire for immortality finds its answer in the Christ 
of Bethlehem. 

Men are tempted to accept as their own view of 
the cosmic meaning the poet's portrayal of a world 
that throws away with heedless hand the spiritual 
achievements it has wrought: 

"The world rolls around forever like a mill, 

It grinds out life and death, and good and ill, 

It has no purpose, heart, or mind or will. 

"Man might know one thing were his sight less dim, 

That it whirls not to suit his petty whim, 

That it is quite indifferent to him. 

"Nay, doth it use him harshly, as he saith, 

It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath, 

Then grinds him back into eternal death." 

Is that the truth of the universe, and the correct 
philosophy of life? I deny it. I deny it by the 
authority of the ancient prophets who dreamed of an 
everlasting kingdom to be set up on the throne of 
David. I deny it by every evidence at the Savior's 

46 



birth of the benevolent impingment of heaven upon 
our sin-torn and troubled earth. I deny it by the life 
of our Lord on earth lived in constant recognition of 
the eternal purpose and permanence of his redemptive 
work. I deny it by the abiding and vital faith of 
Jesus in the eternity of his kingdom. 

There had been men like Socrates, pious and wise, 
who argued for immortality and believed in it. Jesus 
never stopped to argue, but taking it for granted as an 
immediate, but unquestionable intuition, lived as 
though it undoubtedly were true. From his first 
public declaration of the divine imperative to be about 
his Father's business, to the final committal of his 
spirit into the hands of that Father, Jesus rested in 
the confidence that the Spiritual verities of the uni- 
verse can not fail. Not intermittently or on special 
occasions was it given him to see the meaning for 
humanity of the unfailing love of a wise and eternal 
God. But this faith was the constant source of his 
strength and the dynamic of his ministry. True he 
often sought the quiet of the mountain where the 
blandishments of praise and the offers of preferment 
might be seen in their right perspective, and where the 
choking fogs of earth might be dispelled by a fresh 
breeze from heaven. But these experiences only 
strengthened his confidence in the constant compan- 
ionship of the ever-present Father, and made available 
for the valley experience of earth the eternal resources 
of heaven. Immortality was with Jesus much more 
than a doctrine to be believed and taught. It was 
the underlying and basic assumption of his whole 
ministry, the great fact of life which brought him 
from heaven to earth and rendered the redemption of 

47 



the race, a task worthy the sacrifice of his own life, 
which he freely made on Calvary. 

Only upon the assumption that the spirit of man 
is immortal can the meaning of the self-sacrificing life 
of Jesus be understood. Only upon such assumption 
could a life like that be lived. And an evidence that 
it is the correct view of life, is the character that this 
faith produced in him. 

"And of his kingdom there shall be no end" 

Jesus made regnant his hope cherished in the 
heart of man from the beginning; and I bid you today 
in the name of him who was born in a manger bed, 
but who lived to establish an everlasting kingdom in 
the hearts of men, in his name let your minds con- 
template, and your hearts rejoice in, a life of immortal 
bliss beyond the conflicts of earth and the strife of 
men. 



# 



(ttprtatimt InttQ 



SALEM, W. VA. 
JANUARY 12, igrfr 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 

Till we all attain unto the unity of 
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
of God. Ephesians 4: 13a. 

I" SUPPOSE there are Seventh Day Baptists who 
■*■ would even give up the Sabbath for the sake of 
bringing about the organization of one united Christian 
Church. And no doubt there are others who have 
no patience with any form of co-operation even which 
seems to admit that there may be sincere Christians 
who do not observe the Sabbath of Scripture. These 
two opposite views are held by members of the denom- 
ination; and between these extreme positions perhaps 
every shade of belief is represented in our member- 
ship. 

The question of Christian unity is a practical one 
for all Christians, and is daily becoming more so on 
account of developing world conditions. For some 
years the feeling has prevailed among leaders of 
many Protestant denominations that the church has 
been weakened because of divisions and rivalries 
within. Several things have conspired to reveal the 
foolishness of many of the divisions of the church, 
and to emphasize the wisdom of seeking greater unity. 

One of the places where the weakened front of a 
divided Christianity was first felt was in the foreign 
mission field. Differences which served to split de- 
nominations in America, seemed too frivolous in the 
face of a heathen world to be transplanted across the 

51 



water. Christian co-operation in foreign missionary 
labor has in many instances stimulated a closer fel- 
lowship and in some cases a closer organization, 
among the churches at home. Another situation that 
has commanded attention in this regard is the over- 
churched and "under-pastored" condition of many 
communities. The Commission on the Church and 
Rural Life of the Federal Council of the Churches of 
Christ in America has made a survey of Ohio, and its 
secretary has prepared a map that reveals conditions 
in that great State in a most illuminating way. Many 
small communities have three or four weak and dwind- 
ling churches, and not a pastor living in the township. 
In the course of a month perhaps, each church has one 
Sunday service, conducted by a minister who lives 
somewhere else, and who preaches to from four to 
six or eight other churches. Meanwhile the com- 
munity is without the pastoral care of a resident Chris- 
tian minister. No doubt other States are no better, 
and many are even worse in this respect than Ohio. 
Such a situation calls for serious consideration on the 
part of the churches involved, and of the denomina- 
tions that are perpetuating these unchristian condi- 
tions. 

On the positive side, this movement toward Chris- 
tian unity has been accelerated through the services 
of interdenominational organizations. Conspicuous 
among the widely representative reform agencies are 
the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and its now 
full-grown stalwart son, the Anti-Saloon League of 
America. 

Prominent among the organizations more dis- 
tinctly religious, and which have played no small part 
in promoting unity in Christian service, are the Inter- 

52 



national Sunday School Association, the Young Peo- 
ple's Society of Christian Endeavor, and the Chris- 
tian Associations. The most directly representative 
of the churches of all these interdenominational Chris- 
tian bodies is the Federal Council. 

The World War, in presenting to the churches a 
tremendous and compelling task, has stimulated a 
spirit of unity ; and demands concerted action in many 
lines of service on the part of all Christian forces. 
These then are some of the forces, and some of the 
agencies at work which both promote and symbolize 
Christian unity. 

It is quite the fashion when advocating a closer 
union of the Protestant churches, to speak in eulogistic 
terms of the Catholic Church as an illustration of 
strength secured through unity. The facts are, how- 
ever, that Protestantism in the days of its most ex- 
treme denominationalism has nothing on the Catholic 
Church in the bitter jealousies and factional strife 
among the various societies comprehended in that cen- 
trally ruled but heterogeneous organization. It has 
union, but not the unity of the Spirit. Elder George 
C. Tenney, of Battle Creek, in a recent article in the 
Sabbath Recorder, illustrates this point in a reference 
to Savonarola. Of this martyred saint Brother 
Tenney says, "He never lived to see his way out of 
the church, receiving absolution and the last sacra- 
ment at the hands of her priests just before being led 
forth to the fires of martyrdom at the hands of the 
same church. Catholics to this day do not know in 
what catalog Savonarola belongs, whether with the 
heretics or with the faithful." In the same splendid 
article Brother Tenney pronounces as un-Protestant 
the efforts to secure uniformity through the use of a 

53 



prescribed creed; and he is thankful that "the cry, 
long since raised by Luther and his associates, 'To the 
Bible/ is still in the air, and broad fields of sweet and 
satisfying truth lie before those who will venture out 
into them." 

After all, we must go back to the Bible not only 
for the standards of Christian life, but for the basis 
of Christian unity. It is a matter that rested close to 
the Master's heart, it being a part of his wonderful 
intercessory prayer, "That they may be one, even as 
we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may 
be made perfect in one." The unity for which Jesus 
prayed is not such a unity as may be secured through 
allegiance to a pope, or by conformity to a common 
creed. It is freer, warmer; a more personal matter 
than papal authority or creedal obligation. It is a 
thing of the, Spirit. It will come not by acceptance 
of the pope's vice-gerency on earth, nor by a recog- 
nition of the divine authority in apostolic succession. 
It will come not by a general adherence to any set 
creed, nor by belief in the magic of a properly admin- 
istered ordinance. It depends upon nothing material, 
physical, external ; whether it be a tradition of the 
church reaching back through the centuries and hoary 
with age, or whether it be the latest product of some 
religious fanatic's fertile brain, or the discovery of 
some modern materialistic philosopher's infallible (?) 
mind. The unity for which the Master prayed, and 
concerning which Paul wrote, centers in Jesus Christ 
and has its source in him. "Till we all attain unto 
the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son 
of God." 

The church in its ordinances possesses symbols 
of worship which, properly regarded and spiritually 

54 



received, stimulate and strengthen faith. It has in 
its creedal statements, symbols of truth which, prop- 
erly interpreted and spiritually perceived, increase our 
knowledge of the mind and will of Christ. But these 
are helps and not tests, stairways and not landings, 
means and not ends. 

There are three positions which a church or de- 
nomination may take toward the insistent question of 
Christian unity. It may be the position, which is 
popular with certain representatives of many Prot- 
estant denominations, that what we need is church 
union, i. e., to bring all Christendom under one organi- 
zation. The watchword of these church unionists is 
"the elimination of non-essentials." This sounds 
feasible enough perhaps, and its plausibility is empha- 
sized by the fact that the church is suffering from 
over-organization, or competitive rather than co- 
operative organization and effort. The weakness of 
this position however is that while its aim is con- 
structive its method is negative. Another has said, 
"In seeking to compass this great end we must not 
appear as sanctified company promoters, anxious to 
bring about a great combine, or as ecclesiastical man- 
agers, skilled in producing artificial constitutions. 
Such methods can never enlist sufficiently powerful 
motives in their behalf; nor, indeed, can they appeal 
to the kind of motives which will ultimately sway all 
that is best in the hearts of Christian people." 

To advocate unreasoned and precipitate action in 
the matter of church union but hinders and retards 
Christian unity. Not only that, but it is likely to 
restrict the church's activity, lessen her missionary zeal, 
and weaken her message of salvation. Denomina- 
tions separated by differences in polity or in ecclesi- 

55 



astical organization may well consider whether union 
would not be the wise and practical thing. But for a 
church holding a Scriptural doctrine or practice to 
compromise its faith for the sake of union would be 
not only to stifle its own life, but to weaken the impact 
of the whole church upon the world. Union by the 
process of elimination is negative and. therefore de- 
structive. No doubt much needs to be eliminated 
from the church, but the only safe process is by a 
re-emphasis of the fundamentals of faith, and by a 
renewed loyalty and devotion in worship and service 
to Jesus Christ our Master and Lord. By this method 
only can the church be trusted to rid itself of elements 
of weakness. 

Another position open to a Christian denomina- 
tion facing this impelling question, is that of ex- 
clusiveness. A denomination may hold itself separate 
and aloof from all others, reckoning itself to be the 
only church, and all besides to be but organized pro- 
moters of damnable heresies. Such is the historic 
position of the Roman Catholic Church, and the one 
still held by it in both theory and practice. There 
are Protestant churches that have gotten so far away 
from the fundamental principles of Protestantism as 
to assume, in practice at least, this same position. Of 
this theory some one has said, "In the strictest sense 
of the word it is an impertinence that any type of 
ecclesiastical organization — be it Papacy, Episcopacy, 
Presbytery, or Independency — should be so held as to 
mutilate the one Body of Christ, or to hinder the free 
circulation of the life that is in every part." 

There remains a third position, and it has not only 
my sanction, but my earnest and most hearty support. 
It is that of loyalty to the principle of denominational 



integrity, and of interdenominational co-operation. I 
take this to be the historic position of Seventh Day 
Baptists, and to be in harmony with the logic of our 
position, and to the spirit of Christ. Resting in the 
correctness and security of this position, let us con- 
fidently face the future. 

We are living in a new world, in a torn and 
bleeding world, in a sin-sick and needy world. But 
we are living in a unified and waiting world, in a 
crying and seeking world. The cry must be 
answered not only by a united church; but by 
a purified and holy church, a church Christ- 
inspired and Spirit-led. How shall Seventh 
Day Baptists do their part in meeting this 
twofold demand? Shall we deliberately sink our de- 
nominational identity in a sacrificial effort to bring 
into one organized body all believers? Or, on the 
other hand, shall we emphasize our separateness, and 
leave to the co-operative ministry and service of others 
the world's redemption, while we tag along in the 
rear, crowding ahead once in a while far enough to 
nudge these forward-looking denominations in the ribs 
with our elbow while we shout in their cars, "You 
forgot something. What about the Sabbath!" God 
forbid that we should do either of these disastrously 
foolish things. So long as the Christian Church, 
however awakened it may be to its responsibility to 
save a dying world, — so long as the church fails in 
the proper recognition of the Sabbath of divine ap- 
pointment, that long will there be a place for a body 
of believers who hold sacred the Sabbath of the 
Scriptures. On the other hand, this Sabbath, which 
was made for man, must not wait to be brought in 
as an adjunct to Christianity by a people who confine 

57 



themselves to this one religious duty. Seventh Day 
Baptists, seeing the wider field, and hearing the world 
call, must, as loyal observers of the Sabbath law, co- 
operate with all who follow Jesus in serving the world. 

The Christian Church is submitting itself to a 
rigid self-examination. For three years this process 
lias been going on for the purpose of discovering why 
Christianity did not prevent this war. We have about 
decided that, like the disciples who remained at the 
foot of the mountain, we have stood in the presence 
of the world's need and argued about the power of 
Christ, but have been too far from him to transmit 
that healing power to a suffering world. We have 
heeded well the Master's admonition to be in the 
world, but we have sought also to be of it, which is 
contrary to the Lord's command. 

Many reasons may be given for the church's 
failure. Seventh Day Baptists who join in this self- 
examination, indulged in now with a more clearly 
defined and a constructive purpose, have won the right 
to say, "The church that has failed is a Sabbathless 
church." Let us say it; not censoriously, but with 
humility, as we confess our own shortcomings. 

The church that can meet the demands of fhis 
new day must be the church of ministry in the name 
of Christ. And if the Sabbath is needed to prepare 
the church for its world task, to provide the weekly 
mountain-top experience of transfiguration that will 
keep it fit, then Sabbath-keeping Christians have a 
twofold duty: to keep this matter before the churches 
of other faiths with whom they co-operate in Christian 
service, and to demonstrate by their own devotion, as 
they serve hand in hand with others, the spiritual 
value of the Sabbath. 

58 



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NORTONVILLB, KAN. 
CONFERENCE 

AUGUST 21, igi8 



SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS AND THE NEW 
WORLD-ORDER 

TT HAS BEEN said repeatedly that henceforth and 
•*■ for some time to come everything will be dated 
from the Great War. We come to this conclusion 
because the war affects us all so vitally as it enters 
every home with some urgent demand, and pulls the 
heartstrings of millions who bid loved ones good-by. 
And this will be a different world as a result of the 
present conflict. Our homes will be different. Many 
of the boys will not come back. Some have already 
made the supreme sacrifice. Those who do come 
back will be changed; and we who stay at home can 
not go through the experiences of these tremendous 
times and remain what we were before. Our social 
relations will be greatly altered, and our economic 
life will have undergone a reconstruction. Surely in 
all these ways and many more the Great War is fixing 
an important date for all time. 

It is not my purpose to dilate upon these evident 
changes, or to draw conclusions for the future from 
facts so patent to every observer. While I would not 
disregard these obvious changes, nor fail to appreci- 
ate their significance for the future, I desire to bring 
into purview other forces at work in the world. I 
have chosen to survey the field of spiritual forces 
because they affect the world more fundamentally. 

The Protestant Reformation in the popular mind 
dates from the nailing of Luther's ninety-five theses 
to the door of the Wittenburg chapel. In fact the 

61 



celebration of the Quadri-centennial by Protestantism 
last year centered about that date. True enough on 
October 31, 15 17, began the violent eruption which 
was to wrench a new freedom from the autocratic 
power of a sterile but arrogant ecclesiasticism. But 
without the Renaissance there could have been no 
Reformation. He who studies the movements of 
Luther and his coadjutors as they stand in unqualified 
opposition to the unscrupulous power of Rome, but 
fails to trace the silent forces which lead up to that 
hour, has not reckoned with the great spiritual forces 
always at work in the world. 

It is not my object to cite a parallel between 
the Protestant Reformation and the present world sit- 
uation. In spite of the hoary adage to the contrary, 
I do not believe that history repeats itself. Cause and 
effect follow each other, but history is progressive. 
There are always new elements entering in, and there- 
fore advanced results being obtained in the develop- 
ment of history. I maintain that the new order 
whose existence will be dated from the Great War has 
ito roots in the new learning of the last fifty years 
preceding the outbreak of the present conflict. 
Modern science has given us a new universe. We 
owe a great debt to natural science which has immeas- 
urably enlarged, but has unified our world, and has 
given us instead of a capricious, a trustworthy uni- 
verse. Science has made it possible for theology to 
postulate the truth, both inspiring and reassuring, that 
God is a God of law ; for a God of law can be trusted, 
while a god of caprice can not. It is true there are 
men restricted in religious experience and contracted 
in their thinking who have arrogated to science a 
place of dominance to which common sense can not 

62 



agree. But common sense is not so uncommon but 
that men are able to take care of an error so obviously 
inconsistent. Science should be made a servant of 
religion. We may accept its conclusions in regard 
to the methods and processes in this universe of ours, 
but its limitations bar it from determining ultimate 
causes or final results in the realm of religion. 
Science may tell us how God has worked, but not how 
God must work. It teaches us not the uniformity of 
law, but the universality of law. Science has taught 
us that God works according to law, but not all, nor 
the most important, elements entering into the law 
of God are discoverable to science. By the help of 
science, however, religion has been redeemed from 
fetishism and has become a life of trust in a living 
God who is at home in the universe. The earlier 
fears of orthodoxy, which persist even yet in some 
minds, were that God would be driven out of the 
world if we came to understand in any measure how 
he orders and sustains the universe. Such fears were 
based upon the false notion that only the mysterious 
is of God. We have seen him only in the gaps which 
we could not bridge in our thinking. Such concep- 
tions put a premium on ignorance. As knowledge 
increases and these gaps become smaller and fewer 
our God of magic is taken from us. Today God is 
brought nearer in every discovery of the working of 
law, for it constitutes a fresh revelation of God's way 
with men, and a new insight into his character. We 
shall never be able in this world to fathom the mystery 
of divine being, but we can follow along in the right 
direction. Jesus will ever be to man the supreme 
revelation of God, but knowledge and reason. 

63 



scientifically acquired and applied, support faith and 
foster an ethical religion. 

Another important influence in the new world- 
order is the new light which the Bible is shedding 
abroad in the world, and the new power it is bring- 
ing to bear upon the life of men and nations. The 
Renaissance and the Reformation made the Book gen- 
erally accessible. It put it into the hands of the 
people, and in the language the people could under- 
stand. But it was overlaid with the traditions of 
centuries of ignorance and superstition, fostered by 
the Roman church and often by designing popes. 
Due to an awakened interest in Bible study, and to 
a devout application of the literary and historical 
method, the crustations which had gathered about the 
Sacred Scriptures are being removed, and there is 
breaking forth from the old Bible a new light, even 
the face of the Man of Galilee, the Savior of man- 
kind. Jesus once said to the Pharisees, ''Ye search 
the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have 
eternal life ; and these are they which bear witness of 
me ; and ye will not come to me that ye may have 
life." The folly of the Pharisees was repeated by the 
Protestant churches during the centuries immediately 
following the Reformation. The Reformation of 
Luther was a great triumph of truth and freedom in 
that the church broke the chains of an unscrupulous 
power. But the new church made the mistake of 
the boy who fell out of bed, it went to sleep too near 
the place it got in at. All sorts of fantastic interpreta- 
tions were put upon the Scriptures, and every variant 
conception of meaning gave rise to a new denomina- 
tion. Every passage was considered of equal value 
with ev<ery other in directing worship and in determin- 



mg conduct. Like the Pharisees of old men searched 
the Scriptures with diligence, but often without find- 
ing Christ therein. Some years ago I heard that a 
certain minister argued the justice of retaliation in a 
particular instance, bringing to bear the Bible which 
says, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." 
If we accept the theory of a dead-level, verbal inspira- 
tion, formerly held by Protestants, there is no way to 
meet his argument. We may quote to him the words of 
the Master in Matthew 5 : 39. But for him that is 
simply a matter of two passages which do not seem 
to agree. One is just as authoritative as the other, 
and if we would justify our position, all we have to 
do is to look up another passage that will support 
Deuteronomy 19: 21. And no doubt it can be found. 
With such a conception of the Bible one may search 
the Scriptures until he is able to argue to a standstill, 
or to a fare-you-well, and fail to find Christ. 

Many read their Bibles today with a new interest, 
and its truths are emancipating their lives, and re- 
generating society. We search the Scriptures because 
they testify of Christ, and through that study we are 
brought to him, and find in him our life. 

Underlying all that I have thus far set forth as 
forces making for a new world-order is the theory 
of evolution. I can make but a brief reference to 
this important factor in the present world conditions. 
Like the discoveries of physical science, and the find- 
ings of the higher criticism, the theory of evolution 
at first proved disconcerting, and seemed about to 
destroy faith. Today its devotees claim less for evo- 
lution, while the church has accepted a rational in- 
terpretation of the theory to the enrichment of the 
life of faith. The Christian believes in evolution not 

65 



as an unfolding simply, but as an enfolding. En- 
vironment, therefore, makes its contribution to the 
development of the personal life and of the race. And 
our environment includes the physical universe, and 
the unseen but boundless realm of the spiritual. 

I have been able to indicate, merely, certain 
theories that have affected the thought of the last sev- 
eral decades, and have brought us up to a new period 
in the world's progress. With it have come new 
problems, and if I read the signs of the times aright, 
new opportunities for the Christian Church. To 
me the times are by no means wholly disheartening. 
This deadly war, the most awful nightmare that ever 
disturbed the dreams of mankind, will pass. The 
night through which we are passing is not without its 
star of promise. The day will dawn. Out of the 
darkness the church will come with a new sense of the 
meaning of Calvary, with a new conception of vi- 
carious suffering, and with a brighter hope of im- 
mortality. Were it not for seeming to belittle 
a calamity so colossal, I would designate the war 
as only a symptom of a world illness which is work- 
ing out its worst suffering in its passing. Were it 
not that I might seem to you to regard war as a 
normal condition in the progress of the race, I would 
speak of it as the world's growing pains. War is 
not normal. It is not a necessity in the development 
of the superman. War is a blight and a curse, a 
block to civilization, and a denial of Christianity. 
It is an evil which must be banished from the earth 
and driven back to Hades where it belongs. Today 
America is giving her sons in a war against war. It 
is the business of the church to support the cause in 
every possible way, but to see to it, also, that the 

66 



fruits of our sacrifice shall not be lost in an after- 
math of spiritual depression and of practical atheism. 

God is not responsible for this war. Men are 
responsible: malicious and evil-minded men. And 
men must put an end to war: men Christ-led and 
Spirit-filled. God does not bring about war in order 
that he may accomplish his purposes thereby. The 
forces that will forever banish war from the earth, 
and bring in the kingdom of Christ are spiritual, 
but they must be man-mediated. The church 
must become ,the instrument of divine grace, the 
channel through which shall flow divine power. The 
church is becoming awake to this fact. And I repeat 
here, The new learning, a re-discovered Bible, and 
modern theology all contribute to the vitalizing of 
Christianity. The church will yet arise to the su- 
preme opportunity not only to meet successfully the 
new world-order, but to mold it. 

You have seen already that I do not agree with 
the pre-millennialists. I do not believe that the war 
was made in heaven and staged on the earth as a part 
of the program of God for the universe. God, the 
Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is not 
going to adopt the methods of the Kaiser and by 
physical means destroy mankind, or any portion of it, 
in order to work out his will. It is not his will that 
any should perish. Many will be destroyed through 
failure to meet the conditions of salvation. But these 
conditions are spiritual. God's kingdom is spiritual, 
and his method is love. He has not abandoned his 
own plan for the world. The man who preaches the 
destruction, by fire or sword or by any other physical 
force, of this world of ours, as a part of the program 
of Heaven, is injecting into religion an element of 

67 



force which is not in keeping with the character of 
God as revealed in Jesus Christ. 

I trust I have made clear my belief concerning 
the present world-situation, both as to the spiritual 
elements entering into it, and their implications for 
the future. It would seem there are new tasks await- 
ing the church; tasks great with possibility for the 
race. Tasks urgent and heavy, but for which God, 
as in every time of crisis, has been preparing his peo- 
ple. We say Germany has been forty years preparing 
for this war. For a longer period than that God has 
been preparing his church to meet the crisis, and to 
carry the race forward toward the goal of peace and 
righteousness, and the kingdom of heaven. Now, 
what is the place of the Seventh Day Baptist Denom- 
ination in this new world-order? And when we speak 
of a new world-order we mean nothing static or 
final. The present is but the legitimate fruitage of 
all the past, the pregnant promise for the future. 

The Christian Church is submitting itself to a 
rigid self-examination. For four years this process 
has been going on for the purpose of determining 
why the church did not prevent this war. One result 
of this study has been the pretty general conclusion 
that the church must become more united. Many 
are working for church union, and boldly state that 
only "visible union" will fit the church to meet the 
demands upon it. There is a popular demand for the 
elimination of all non-essentials that separate the 
church into different communions. Donald Hankey's 
'Religion of the Inarticulate" has become a popular 
phrase. And we hear a good deal regarding John 
D. Rockefeller Junior's "Church of the Living God." 
Many are looking for the elimination of denomina- 

68 



tional lines as the church honestly and seriously faces 
the tasks confronting it. 

The value of co-operation is being demonstrated 
in other fields of action. And, too, we are beginning 
to see how insignificant some things are that separate 
great bodies of Christians. For a single instance, 
why should the color of the skin of the communicants 
separate churches into different camps. Such divis- 
ions are a travesty on religion, and they become em- 
barrassing when carried to the mission field. It 
must be an offense, in the sight of Heaven. 

The elimination of non-essentials will obliterate 
denominational lines where divisions are marked by 
unimportant differences in creed or polity; and the 
church will be stronger for every union brought about 
on that basis. There will be less time for bickerings, 
and more energy to devote to a constructive ministry. 

But we are learning other things in these strenu- 
ous times besides the value of unity of action. We 
are learning to reckon the last ounce of energy, and 
to measure the value of every element of strength. 
The tasks before Christianity call for every available 
spiritual force. The contribution to the spiritual 
equipment of the church which may be made by the 
smallest Christian communion can not be longer over- 
looked. 

For a denomination holding a vital doctrine or 
an essential Christian practice to compromise its faith 
for the sake of organic union would be to stifle its 
own life, and to weaken the impact of the whole 
church upon the world. There might be the form 
of union, but not the power of the unity of the Spirit, 
which must be built around the truth as it is in Jesus. 
No doubt much needs to be eliminated from ,the 

69 



church, but the only safe process is by a re-emphasis 
of the fundamentals of faith, and by a renewed loyalty 
and devotion to Jesus our Master and Lord. The 
one truth that separates us from other Christian bodies 
is the Sabbath. The question of our place, there- 
fore, and of our right to exist apart from ether com- 
munions, depends upon whether the Sabbath as we 
hold it is needed by the church to fulfil its mission in 
the world. For unlike many doctrines about which 
members of the same communion may differ without 
serious difficulty in practice, the observer of the Sev- 
enth-day Sabbath faces once a week the practical de- 
mand for separateness. We believe the church needs 
the Sabbath, and that that need is being demonstrated. 
Those who speak of the failure of Christianity today, 
refer to a Christianity without a Sabbath; certainly 
without the Sabbath; and such was not the religion 
of Jesus with which his disciples were commissioned 
to conquer the world. The Sabbath was lost when 
Christianity was captured by the world, and Sunday- 
keeping, however conscientiously followed today, is a 
part of that apostasy which has threatened us with 
a defunct Christianity and a defeated church. The 
church that shall vitalize humanity and rehabilitate the 
world must be a Sabbath-keeping church. Is that too 
much to say? Confronted by the present collapse of 
civilization, I dare not trust in this dark hour of the 
world any religion, however elaborate or refined, 
other than the faith lived and taught by Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

The life of the Master can not be rightly under- 
stood, or his religion appreciated apart from his 
spiritual heritage. Jesus was born a Jew. No other 
race or religion could have given him birth. It was 



by no arbitrary selection or meTe accident that Jesus 
was born of that race whose life history and whose 
ideals in song and story and sermon make up the con- 
tents of the Old Testament scriptures. The centuries 
behind him were centuries of discipline in the faith 
and religion revealed in the Old Testament. 

No institution of the Hebrew religion had more 
disciplinary influence or more fruitful life-building 
results, than the Sabbath. The monotheistic faith 
of the Jews taught the transcendence of God who 
created the heavens and the earth. That same faith 
that taught his transcendence taught also his im- 
minence. It revealed his loving active interest in man 
in that he created not only a physical earth, beautiful 
and good, but in the morning of the world, "when 
the stars slid singing down their shining way," God 
created a Sabbath for rest and spiritual refreshment. 
We do not stop here to discuss the question of criti- 
cism involved in the early chapters of Genesis. Un- 
derneath the form in which the truth is cast and held 
for the blessing of man is the great truth itself, back 
of which mortal can not go : In the beginning God ; 
and God created the heavens and the earth, — and the 
Sabbath. Nothing less than this is taught in the first 
creation story as recorded in our Bible. That God 
created the heavens and the earth, and the Sabbath 
was a fundamental faith of the Hebrew religion. In 
this faith Jesus was born, and of it he said that not 
one jot or tittle should pass .till all is fulfilled. If 
the roots of the Sabbath reach back into this ancient 
Scripture it is well grounded. And if Jesus said it 
can not pass away till the earth passes, then in our 
Sabbath-keeping we do well to hearken to the voice 
of the Master. 

7i 



As we come to the Ten Commandments we find 
the same principle will hold. The question whether 
the Ten Commandments were written by the finger 
of God on tables of stone need not necessarily be 
answered in the affirmative. Apart from ,the incidents 
connected with the giving of the law as recorded in 
Scripture; the stone slab, the smoke and fire and 
thunder, there remains the great fact of the command- 
ments themselves. They not only exist as recorded 
in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, but they formed 
the foundation of religion and ethics for the Hebrew 
race, and men of Christian faith believe it was of these 
that Jesus spoke when he said, "I, came not to destroy 
the law." 

At the heart and center of this moral code is this 
commandment: "Remember the sabbath day to keep 
it holy." "The seventh day is the sabbath of the 
Lord thy God." The burden of truth rests not upon 
him who holds to the fourth commandment with the 
rest of the Decalog, but upon him who rejects the 
fourth while acknowledging the authority of the other 
nine. Let those who tear one out give reason why; 
Sabbath-keeping Christians need but to hold consist- 
ently to the plain teachings of the word of God. 

In the later history of Israel the sins condemned 
by the prophets were not ceremonial but ethical. The 
people were not asked to multiply sacrifices, but to do 
good to others and to walk humbly before God. The 
prophets who in life and teaching approached the 
Gospel standard, taught that Sabbath-keeping was 
necessary to right living. They cried out against 
Sabbath-breaking which was one of the chief sins 
that brought punishment to the race. They held that 
spiritual Safrbath-keeping would free them from 

72 



threatened punishment, and would bring blessing in 
its train. Jesus said, "I came not to destroy the 
prophets," and in that declaration sealed forever for 
himself and for his disciples the truths taught by 
these worthy men of God. 

Among the lessons of the Babylonian exile was 
the lesson of Sabbath observance. The discipline of 
.those exile years with the teachings of the prophets 
ringing in their ears and lodged in their hearts, 
brought the Hebrew race up to the birth of Jesus 
free from the paganism of no-Sabbathism. 

Briefly I have outlined the place of the Sabbath 
in the teachings of the Old Testament, which was 
Jesus' only Bible. In it he was taught as a child 
and from it he received inspiration and instruction. 
In the Old Testament his life was grounded, and upon 
its teachings his faith was founded. It has been said 
that Jesus taught nothing new; only new conceptions. 
In the birth of Jesus the highest hopes of the prophets 
were fulfilled. He was born in a Jewish home, and 
therefore in a Sabbath-keeping home; in a Seventh- 
day Sabbath home. A home that gathered up into 
its life all that was best in the traditions of the race, 
and where the Scriptures were read and reverenced. 
I have said this was no accident. The Hebrew race, 
in spite of its mistakes and weakness, had in it the 
elements that went into his own life and furnished the 
basis for his teaching. We find him doing just what 
we would expect of one who had perfect discernment. 
Continuing, enlarging, and correcting the conceptions 
of truth found in the Old Testament, he rejected only 
that which the new Way found worthless, and by his 
life and teaching gave larger meaning to all that had 
permanent worth. 

73 



The Jews, who by ceremonial washings had 
washed all the color out of their religion, had bur- 
dened the Sabbath with rabbinical restrictions. From 
these burdens Jesus sought to free the Sabbath. But 
no recorded act of his can be construed to teach that 
he ever forgot its sanctity or disregarded its claims 
upon his own life. They who sought to condemn him, 
and who accused him of Sabbath-breaking, could find 
no charge more serious than that he healed a blind man 
on the Sabbath ; restored a withered hand or straight- 
ened the bent form of a woman long bound under 
an infirmity. In passing through the grain fields 
Jesus did not so much as rub out the grains to satisfy 
his hunger. He defended his disciples against their 
hypocritical accusers, but in his defense of them the 
sacred character of the Sabbath was not involved. 

Think what kind of Sabbath-keeping Jesus must 
have practiced when those who sought to condemn 
him by the strict law of the 'Pharisees could find no 
charge more serious than these. The whole attitude 
of Jesus toward the Sabbath convinces us beyond a 
peradventure that it was one of the institutions of the 
Old Testament that had permanent worth. It must 
be preserved but purified. It must be redeemed from 
Pharisaical fetishism, and restored to its primitive 
purpose of blessing to mankind. He who announced 
himself as lord of the Sabbath when he was here on 
earth, is as truly the lord of the Sabbath today. Such 
a conception of the Sabbath lifts it above the plane 
of narrow sectarianism and of mere Seventh -day 
propagandism. Here we face the question of loyalty 
to Jesus Christ, and of a spiritual conception of the 
Sabbath which shall make it a constructive religious 
force in a day when every spiritual resource is needed 

74 



to build the kingdom of God out of a broken humanity. 
These times call for re-evaluation of our spiritual 
heritage. The Sabbath can not escape the pragmatic 
test now being applied to every ordinance and doctrine 
of the church. If the Sabbath could escape, that very 
fact would go far toward proving its lack of vital 
worth. In the face of a distraught world, humbly 
but confidently we bring the Sabbath of Christ as the 
peculiar contribution of Seventh Day Baptists. This 
we do while joining with all followers of our Lord 
in every possible Christian service which can be bet- 
ter promoted by such co-operation. We are living 
in a new world. In a torn and bleeding world, but 
in a unified and waiting world. In a crying and 
seeking world. The cry must be answered by a 
united church, but by a purified and holy church. 
How shall Seventh Day Baptists do their part in 
meeting this twofold demand ? Shall we deliberately 
sink our denominational identity in a sacrificial effort 
to bring into one organized body all believers? Or, 
en the other hand, shall we emphasize our separate- 
ness, leaving to the co-operative ministry of others 
the world's redemption? God forbid that we 
should do either of these disastrously foolish things. 
So long as the Christian Church, however awakened 
it may be to its responsibility to save a dying world, 
— so long as the church fails in the proper recogni- 
tion of the Sabbath of divine appointment, that long 
will there be a place for a separate body of believers 
who hold sacred in practice the Sabbath of the Scrip- 
tures. On the other hand, the Sabbath must not 
wait to be brought in as an adjunct to Christianity, 
but must be given the fundamental place it holds in 
the life and teachings of Jesus. 

75 



The church that can meet the demands of this 
new day must be the church of ministry in the name 
of Christ. Seventh Day Baptists, seeing the wider 
field and hearing the world call must, as loyal observ- 
ers of the Sabbath, co-operate with all followers of 
Jesus in serving the world. And if the Sabbath 
is needed to prepare the church for its world task 
and to provide the weekly mountain-top experience 
of transfiguration that will keep it fit, then Sabbath- 
keeping Christians have a twofold duty. They must 
keep this matter before the churches of other faiths 
with whom they co-operate in Christian service; and 
they must demonstrate by their sacred devotion to 
the larger service the spiritual value of the Sabbath. 
We do well to remember that the Pharisees were Sab- 
bath-keepers, and to avoid their narrowness in the 
conception and use of the day. Rather let us follow 
Jesus in a world service for which the Sabbath can 
better fit us. 

Sunday is a graft from paganism, which grad- 
ually made its way into the Christian Church. Con- 
versely, the gradual supremacy of pagan superstition 
drove the Sabbath of Christ from the church. The 
watchword of present progressive Protestantism is, 
"Back to Christ." It is the felt necessity on the part 
of many Christians, and a positive trend in the Chris- 
tian Church. The Sabbath, which was made for man, 
marks the way over which that journey must be taken. 
The Christian Church "is in By-path Meadow, ahead 
of her is the Slough of Despond. The weekly Sab- 
bath which has marked the King's Highway from the 
beginning of time, stretches on ahead, a guidepost to 
direct the weary feet of the earthly pilgrim, a pledge 
of Heavenly rest at the end of the journey. 

76 



Star ®i|*tr &ak*« 



SEPTEMBER 21, 1918 



FOR THEIR SAKES 

{And for their sakes I sanctify my- 
self, that they themselves also may be 
sanctified in truth. John 17: 19. 

/ T\HE richest, fullest life our earth has ever known 
■*■ was the life of Jesus. This is true when we 
study it from the viewpoint of him who lived the life. 
In spite of the hardships which he was called upon to 
undergo, and the sorrow through which he had to 
pass, the overcoming life of Jesus, lived in the con- 
sciousness of his Father's approval, was deeply joyous. 
True his sensitive flesh suffered the pain of ,the cruel 
nail wounds, but he who could forget his own hunger 
in bringing salvation to the heart of one woman, 
could triumph over pain in the consciousness of a 
world salvation wrought out on the cross. True the 
disappointment that he felt on account of his rejection 
by his own grieved his sensitive and loving spirit, but 
he whose love encompassed the race could find su- 
preme joy in the fellowship of one repentant sinner. 
We who have tasted the joy of unselfish service inter- 
mittently rendered can faintly imagine the holy satis- 
faction of a life constantly lived on that high level. 
The life of Jesus was satisfying. 

Certainly no life can be compared to that of the 
Master in the richness and the fulness of its blessing 
to others. Perhaps no set of men ever followed a 
leader more faithfully than the disciples of Jesus fol- 

79 



lowed their Master. Certainly men never followed 
another from whom flowed such sweet joy in fellow- 
ship or like power to dominate the passing present 
by a buoyant and eternal hope. And that trickling 
stream which at its beginning made glad the Galilean 
gorges has filled the earth bringing everywhere life, 
life more abundant, — the abounding life. 

What was the secret of this life of Jesus, so rich 
and full ? He sanctified himself. "I sanctify myself." 
The word here translated "sanctify," might be trans- 
lated "consecrate." Not ,that these words are exact 
synonyms, but they are complementary, and both are 
necessary to give the full meaning of the original 
Greek word. The arc of a circle when looked at 
from one viewpoint is convex, and from another it 
is concave. It would not be an arc without both a 
convex and a concave side, and it could not have 
one without the other. So are ' 'consecration" and 
"sanctification" necessary and concomitant parts of a 
perfect and rounded spiritual life. 

Sanctification may be thought of as a cleansing 
of the life, and making it fit ; while consecration is the 
devotion of the purified life to the Christian task. In 
the Salem Church, protected by a glass covering, there 
sits in sight of the worshipers the communion cups 
of our fathers. They have been made sacred to us 
because they were used by them in the quarterly serv- 
ice of Holy Communion. I can not think they were 
ever used for that purpose without first having been 
cleansed and perhaps polished by some deacon's good 
wife, or other member of the church. This may help 
to illustrate, but faintly indeed, what I mean by sanc- 
tification and consecration. Our lives are purged and 
purified, and set apart: sanctified. Then they are 

80 



committed, devoted, used: consecrated. And these 
are not two separate and distinct processes. They 
support each other, each secures the other, they are 
related as the two surfaces of a cymbal. 

We are shy today of the word "sanctify." Saint 
is taboo in modern Christian thought and usage. Per- 
haps this is not due to a lack of reverence, but to a 
more discriminating judgment as to what constitutes 
sainthood, and a consequent lack of appreciation of 
those who have made freest use of the term. Our 
conceptions are extra-Biblical, and not Pauline. There 
are two classes of saints with whom we are familiar; 
technical saints, and self-styled saints. One is the 
product of the Middle Ages, and is seen now only 
in pictures, the other is a present-day flesh-and-blood 
leality. The first is pictured with bloodless face and 
upturned eyes, usually accompanied by an aureole; 
good, no doubt, but good for what? The second is 
assertive and censorious, usually lacking the chief re- 
deeming grace of the former class, that of humility. 

We need to go back to the New Testament, to 
Paul and to Jesus, and fill up with a fresh content of 
meaning this good word, and make it not only usable 
but stimulating and helpful. 

Jesus sanctified himself. And his sanctification 
was not the result of a single act. It was the result 
cf a life of devotion. He sanctified himself in order 
to live the consecrated life, and by that consecration 
was sanctified. We reach our best by devoting our- 
selves to others. 

"For their sakes I sanctify myself." "For their 
sakes." No question has provoked more discussion 
on the part of the theologians than the question as 
to how the righteousness of Jesus can be appropriated 

fti 



to the salvation of the sinner. The question has been 
so handled by the church as to lead many to believe 
that righteousness can be put on like a coat, and even 
borrowed from a neighbor. What else do we under- 
stand from the sale of indulgences, and prayer to 
saints, and all the handy but complicated trappings 
of a proxy religion? The saints of the past have 
stored up merit, and upon this store Christians of 
the present day may draw. Upon this principle is 
based most of the abuses of the Roman Catholic 
Church. Of course these practices have been modi- 
fied in many lands, and I have no desire to magnify 
them here. There is a theory of "imputed righteous- 
ness" held by many Protestants which is more refined, 
but little less fatal to spirituality. "Jesus paid it all" 
has too long been sung as a spiritual lullaby. There 
are too many who lack only the frankness of the 
"horse-trader" who said that he cheated a man once 
in a while, and lied a little, but he thanked God he 
never lost his Christian faith. They rejoice that the 
law has been nailed to the cross, and by their conduct 
nullify the words of Jesus who said, "I came not to 
destroy the law." 

We make mention of these things not simply to 
condemn them, but in order to make way for a con- 
structive treatment of this division of our subject. 
There is a true sense in which we sanctify ourselves 
for the sake of others. "And for their sakes I sanc- 
tify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified 
in truth." This statement carries the relation of 
cause and effect. And no argument is needed to con- 
vince a saint of Paul's type, ancient or modern, as to 
what the effect of the life of Jesus has been upon his 
followers. Jesus sanctified himself, and his conse- 

8a 



crated life has inspired the highest ideals and stimu- 
lated the noblest deeds conceived in human hearts or 
wrought out in human conduct. The righteousness 
of Christ is not imputed unto him who possesses the 
proper formula of faith, but it does avail for him who 
accepts Christ as the inspiration and the guiding 
power of his life. It is the truth of Christ that the 
Holy Spirit makes use of to sanctify the life of the 
Christian today. Perhaps there is no greater need 
on the part of Christians than a better knowledge of 
the life of Jesus as it was lived on earth. Nothing 
is doing more to emancipate the souls of men from 
superstition and error and to bring fulness of life, 
than a renewed interest in the study of the life of 
the Master, and a reverent purpose to penetrate the 
inner motives of his conduct. It is opening up afresh 
the springs of salvation to a dying world, and is mak- 
ing fruitful the work of the Holy Spirit in developing 
human life and character. 

In like manner, although in a restricted sense, 
the lives of the saints may avail for our own sancti- 
iication. I know I am a better man because of John 
Huss, Edward Stennett, John Wesley, S. D. Davis, 
O U. Whitford, and A. P. Ashurst. Because they 
sanctified themselves for the sake of others some small 
good has been brought out in my own life which 
otherwise would have remained untouched. "The 
Life and Letters of Lucy Clarke Carpenter" now run- 
ning in the Sabbath Recorder is making available 
life stuff which will be worked into other lives. 

I have heard expressions of regret that Peter 
Velthuysen gave his life in Africa. I am not fa- 
miliar with all the circumstances of his going. I have 
understood that he asked us not to consider his life 

83 



lost, or that it was a mistake for him to go, if he 
should die in Africa. I have often thought that if the 
black men of the Gold Coast had reason to doubt the 
sincerity of our love for them, that lonely grave must 
stand as a witness of the genuineness of the love of 
one man. Peter sanctified himself that they might 
be sanctified, and it can not be that his life was lost 
to them. Such lives sanctify Seventh Day Baptists. 
If the martyrdom of John James is enough "to per- 
petuate Seventh Day Baptists for a thousand years," 
it will help to sanctify the life of every one who is 
familiar with the circumstances of his brave death. 

The mother sanctifies herself for the sake of her 
baby, and consecrates herself to her baby. She sanc- 
tifies herself that the child may be sanctified, and the 
consecrated devotion of the mother will be the big- 
gest factor in sanctifying the life of the child. Life 
is caught and not taught. Parents must be what 
they would have their children become. Again we 
make reverent application of the words of Jesus, "And 
for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves 
also may be sanctified in truth." 

This is a timely text. Not that it is needed more 
now than at any other time, but it unfolds a little 
easier before our minds because of the experiences 
of these trying times. "What can we do for the 
boys?" is the question echoed in many hearts. All 
eyes are turned toward the training camps or the bat- 
tle front, and all hearts anxiously yearn tO ( render some 
service to the boys who are sacrificing so much for 
country and humanity. What can we do for them? 
We are in sympathy with every effort to minister to. 
their comfort and to increase their happiness, and 
we will support every welfare agency that works to 



those ends. We will send them messages of cheer. 
We will do what we can to provide them moral guid- 
ance and spiritual council. But in all this service 
which we gladly give, let us not forget to sanctify 
ourselves for their sakes. Many are under great 
temptation. Some are yielding, many are bravely 
resisting. For the sake of the weak ones we want 
to sanctify ourselves that we may be strength to them. 
For the sake of those who are growing stronger with 
a high courage and with a lively hope for the future, 
we need to sanctify ourselves in order that we may 
meet their devotion with a life equally consecrated. 
We will not slacken any effort in behalf of the boys 
in khaki, or sever a single communication between 
the home and the cantonment or battle field; but we 
will sanctify ourselves in order that our service shall 
be a holy service, and the streams of influence that 
go out from us shall be soul-sustaining. 

The most conspicuous example of the nation's 
cleaning up for the sake of the boys is found in the 
measures taken for war-time prohibition. There is 
no more virtue in prohibition in war time than in 
peace times. But when our young men were called 
cut from their little communities, and set in groups 
containing thousands, the eyes of the nation were 
open to the importance of safeguarding and strength- 
ening her manhood. And the necessity was made 
more evident as we faced a strong tangible foe. Let 
us hope, now that our eyes are open, that after the 
war, for their sakes and for the sake of the boys not 
old enough to wear the country's uniform and for 
the sake of the unborn generations, we shall keep 
ourselves forever free from the poison of rum. Be- 
fore us, smoke-screened by this war, is a new unknown 

8s 



world. All men are peering into the future to see if 
possible what portends. Its issues can be met only 
by sober men. 

The saddest chapter in the history of this war is 
the one which describes the camp of the prodigal. 
Noble men and pure women are doing what they can 
for these soul-scarred youths. There seems little we 
can do. Shall we not be more chaste in our own 
language and purer in our own thoughts? Shall we 
not reinforce the social structure by a sanctified con- 
ception of sex relations, and by a holy regard for the 
marriage vows? Can we not by plain living and 
high thinking lead our children in the paths of purity 
and to lives of holy security? "For their sakes I 
sanctify myself." 

Our boys in the Army and Navy can not keep the 
Sabbath as they did when at home and in peace times. 
What can we do here ? We can help them to a spir- 
itual conception of the Sabbath, by which the day 
shall still be held in such regard as to make it minister 
to .their religious life. I have no doubt that young 
men who have found the Sabbath a blessing in the 
past will find it one of their greatest spiritual assets 
in their present strange surroundings. The weekly 
recurrence of the Sabbath will remind them of their 
obligations to God. It will also bring to mind the 
religious experiences of the past associated with that 
holy day. I have it from the testimony of one young 
man that the Sabbath never meant more to him than 
it does now in army life. And this is because it 
meant much to him before. Before. the war he at- 
tended regularly the Sixth-day evening prayer meet- 
ing, the Sabbath morning worship, and the Christian 
Endeavor meeting. 



My fears are for those to whom the Sabbath has 
not meant much in the past. What shall we do for 
them? All we can, in every way we can. But let 
us not fail to sanctify ourselves in our Sabbath-keep- 
ing. Better Sabbath-keeping at home, better Sabbath- 
keeping in our homes and minds and hearts is the 
duty of the hour for Seventh Day Baptists. 

What shall we do for our boys, for our children, 
for our church, for our denomination, for our world? 
Pray? Yes, but the best prayer we can offer to 
Heaven is a sanctified and holy life, consecrated to 
the service of others. 

"And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they 
themselves also may be sanctified in truth." 



Walk in %xm 



SALEM, W. VA. 
OCTOBER J, iqi8 



WALK IN HIM 

As therefore ye received Christ Jesus 
the Lord, so walk in him. Colossians 
2: 6. 

PERHAPS there is no opportunity for close and 
helpful companionship like that afforded by 
friends walking together. Many problems have been 
solved and many a destiny determined as two have 
walked in serious conversation and sympathetic fel- 
lowship. "Let us take a walk together" is a sug- 
gestion that has been followed many a time by a bet- 
ter understanding on the part of men erstwhile 
estranged, or has deeped and purified a friendship 
already strong and constant. And to walk alone is 
often like taking a spiritual bath when the soul is 
heavy with the cares of life. 

As I look back over my own past I catch even 
now glimpses of the upland road where I walked 
alone, or in the companionship of helpful friends. 
Ihe lonely rambles of my boyhood may be better 
described as a climb than as a walk, as they usually 
led in devious and rugged ways from the foot of the 
hill to the summit. I remember, however, especially 
well, a Sabbath morning walk to Sabbath school alone, 
in my college days. I was at home on a vacation, 
and as I walked along the "Sabbath-school path" of 
the "Bond boys," over which I had walked on Sabbath 
mornings during all my boyhood years, the path 
seemed to be a connecting link between my happy 

91 



past and the unknown future toward which I looked 
with hopeful anticipation. As I walked the path 
that led unerringly to the little white church on the 
hill, I felt that the pathway of life was about complet- 
ing the turn around the hill, when my boyhood would 
be a memory and I should face the full responsibili- 
ties of manhood. At the moment of that realization 
there came to me the experience of a Divine compan- 
ionship suited to the new stage of the journey upon 
which I was consciously entering. 

I recall with pleasure early spring days when 
sister and I together waded the leaves piled in the 
gulleys and climbed the steep sides of the hog-backs 
to gather the red "ground-ivy" berries, or gathered 
moss to carpet our playhouse under the beech tree. 
And the wholesome and sympathetic companionship 
of that sister was one of the greatest blessings to me 
during later boyhood and early manhood. Many a 
Sabbath afternoon was made blessed in a quiet walk 
about the farm and over the hills with father and 
mother and children together enjoying sweet com- 
panionship. I remember also a walk with a certain 
young woman down "Long Run grade," toward the 
setting sun. I remember very little that was said, 
but I remember the thoughts of my own heart, and 
the feeling of companionship in sympathetic under- 
standing; and for fifteen years we have walked side 
by side happily and helpfully. 

Only last week I enjoyed a ramble over the hills 
in the mellow autumn sun when, as the afternoon 
shadows stretched east-north-east aslant the hillside, 
the family, consisting of school girls and little girls 
and parents, fared forth to enjoy a holiday together. 
Of course the children had a happy time. Every- 



thing is full of romance for happy, carefree children 
out for a good time. The yellow of the goldenrod 
is richer than Cinderella's slipper, and no queen ever 
dressed in robe of state as rare and beautiful, as the 
autumn-tinted maple tree. And there are always un- 
expected delights, such as a cotton-itail crouching low 
in the grass, sitting motionless until surrounded by 
seven pairs of feet and wonderingly inspected by as 
many pairs of eyes, when suddenly, without a "How- 
do-you-do" or "Good-by," he springs from his nest 
and brushing the skirts of an excited Miss bounds 
away to his secret hiding place. 

For the older members of the party there was 
the joy of the companionship of children in happiest 
spirit, the deep-breathed exhilaration of Nature in 
charming though melancholy mood, and the memory 
of childhood days seen through the hazy blue of the 
dying year's mellow atmosphere. There is no cordial 
better calculated to relieve the strain of the care- 
heaped years, or to prevent the threatened break, 
than the companionship of children in God's won- 
derful out-of-doors. Such experiences make us 
not only healthier and happier, but better, and fitter 
for the compelling and worthy tasks of these difficult 
times. Try it. The hills await your coming, the 
sunshine invites you, and the golden-robed trees ex- 
tend a welcome. Save valuable time by taking a day 
off to commune with Nature. If the whole family 
can go, so much the better. If some member of rthe 
family is absent, perhaps in the service of the coun- 
try, still for his sake, go. Or even if a loved one 
has been translated from the scenes of earth, make 
happy an inhabitant of heaven by a day of communion 
with the absent one in the heavenly experience of a 

93 



meditative ramble with loving and kindred spirits, in 
the gloriously suggestive atmosphere of a fading 
autumn afternoon. 

While the companionships of earth are pleasant 
and helpful, and these are often brought to their 
highest enjoyment in a walk together, the most satis- 
factory spiritual experience may be described as a 
walk with God. There may be men, narrowly 
"scientific," and lacking in religious appreciation, who 
balk at the anthropomorphism of the early chapters of 
Genesis. But the spiritual-minded man of under- 
standing finds soul- food and spiritual delight in the 
statement that "They heard the voice of Jehovah God 
walking in the garden in the cool of the day." In 
this primitive story of beginnings divinity is stripped 
of polytheism, and God is thought of as companion- 
able, and as one who seeks the companionship of 
men. 

Before the dawn of human history, when the 
movements of men and nations were shadowy and 
undiscernible, in the morning twilight of the race, tra- 
dition says that a man "walked with God : and he was 
not; for God took him." When Enoch was no more 
on earth his neighbors knew that he was continuing 
just beyond the veil which their mortal eyes could not 
pierce, the walk with God which he had enjoyed in the 
life here. 

In the full-orbed day of Hebrew prophecy when, 
through these mighty messengers of God, the light 
of divine revelation rose to its highest expression pre- 
vious to the coming of the Son of Man, Isaiah gives 
it as the climax of religious experience to walk and 
not be weary. 

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, 

94 



there was potential fulfilment of the hope and expecta- 
tion of the sages and prophets of old, and one of the 
names given him was "Immanuel," which means, God 
with us. And when he grew to manhood, in the fel- 
lowship which he had with his disciples was a practical 
demonstration of the blessings of divine companion- 
ship. In the crowded streets of Capernaum, by the 
shores of blue Galilee, and on the quiet mountain side 
Jesus walked and talked with his disciples till they 
caught his spirit, learned the truths of his kingdom, 
and received the inspiration to carry his message to 
the world. Whether he followed the familiar by- 
ways of Galilee, or wearily trudged the dusty roads 
of Samaria; whether through ripening grain fields of 
Judea, or in Perean desert, always there were the 
fishermen wonderingly listening to what the Master 
said, or holding converse together on the possible 
meaning of the words that fell from his precious lips. 

When Jesus was about to go away he cheered the 
hearts of his disciples with the promise of another 
Comforter, who should be with them forever. And 
that they might not think of some strange and un- 
familiar presence, he said to them in plain words, that 
which their doubting minds could not comprehend, 
but which later brought them supreme joy of heart, 
"I come unto you." How literally and blessedly this 
promise was fulfilled in the experience of the two 
who walked to Emmaus. We can easily imagine 
them walking along with slow tread and heads bowed, 
stopping anon to search each the sad countenance of 
the other, as they talked of their former joy in the 
Master's fellowship, and of their blasted hope, now 
that he was dead. When suddenly there were not 
two but three, for a stranger silently and unobserved 

95 



has joined them. So absorbed were they in their sad 
topic that they did not see him approaching, and when 
he asks them the nature of the topic which engages 
them so absorbingly, they can not refrain from ex- 
pressing their astonishment that he does not know. 
Can there be any one in the vicinity of Jerusalem who 
has not heard of the crucifixion of Jesus, or, having 
heard, who can talk of anything else? As they con- 
tinue their walk, the stranger takes the lead in the 
conversation, and as he talks on reassuringly a rift 
is made in the cloud that has overshadowed them all 
day. They listen with burning hearts till they come 
to the end of the journey ; but they can not part from 
him who has brought them comfort and a new hope. 
They urge him to abide with them, and at the evening 
meal Jesus was made known to them in the familiar 
way in which he blessed and break the bread. Jesus 
was risen, and the blessed fellowship of his presence 
was still a reality. By his personal appearance among 
them Jesus revived the spirits of all the disciples, and 
at the final mountain-top meeting in Galilee he prom- 
ised to be with them always, even unto the end o4 
the world. In the strength and inspiration of that fel- 
lowship his disciples have carried the Gospel message 
to the nations of .the earth. 

The promoters of Christian unity who name the 
incarnation as the cardinal Christian doctrine, have 
tapped the touchstone of our common Christian faith. 
The fact that God is Jesus Christ tabernacled among 
men, and made forever possible for men on earth fel- 
lowship with the Divine, is the basis for every other 
Christian doctrine. The atonement, salvation, immor- 
tality, and every other doctrine of the church dear to 
the Christian heart rests for its assurance back upon 



the doctrine of the incarnation, and finds its fruition 
in a spiritual fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. 

It is a sad fact that in the early centuries the 
Christian Church lost the sense of fellowship with its 
Founder in a cold ecclesiasticism. The interest of 
Christians shifted from doing to definitions, and there 
developed a "Theological Christ," about whom men 
might argue, but whom they could not follow, and 
with whom they could not enjoy a daily fellowship. 
No sooner had the ecclesiastics succeeded by their sys- 
tems in removing Christ beyond the everyday experi- 
ences of men (so certain were we created for Divine 
fellowship) than there developed Mariolatry, the wor- 
ship of saints, and a priesthood with sacrificial func- 
tions, to bridge the chasm which the church had cre- 
ated by its stilted and formal Christology. There 
were always men, more no doubt than history knows 
about, saints like Francis of Assisi, who tore away 
the trappings of a defunct church, and coming face 
to face with the Son of man, set out to walk with him 
ill a lifetime journey of sweet companionship. But 
such an one found little help in the church in developing 
the Christian graces, and no opportunity to give ex- 
pression in Christian service to a living faith in the 
Christ of the New Testament, who went about doing 
good. 

The reformers made theoretically possible the di- 
rect communion of the human spirit with the Divine, 
but their conception of Jesus was not such as to make 
true in practice that for which they zealously con- 
tended. Consequently they developed the "Mystical 
Christ" of German Pietism, which warmed the hearts 
of many individual Christians throughout the conti- 
nent of Europe, but which made little headway against 

97 



the orthodoxy of the state church. Many of these 
pious but persecuted souls made their way to Amer- 
ica, where they lived pure lives, but in happy isola- 
tion, unmindful of their obligation as followers of 
Jesus to make his principles regnant in the community 
and in the world. Many of their descendants have 
caught the spirit of the "Ethical Christ," which is 
preached today in many pulpits, and which we believe 
to be the Christ of Galilee and of Judea, and are 
among the forward-looking Christian workers of our 
time. 

We need today no doubt some adequate intel- 
lectual conception of the nature of Christ; and a 
formal statement, clear and simple, may be helpful. 
I doubt not a certain mysticism, by which we may feel 
the presence of Jesus in sweet and satisfying fellow- 
ship, is a definite demand of the souls of men if they 
are not to be swamped in this practical age. But 
there is a call ringing out, clear and unmistakable, for 
men who can bring to bear upon the vexing problems 
oi our realistic age the practical idealism of Jesus. 
There is need everywhere of Christian leaders who 
in the daily companionship of Jesus are made strong 
and hopeful and who can make the church the central 
radiating force that shall rehabilitate a broken hu- 
manity and weld together the severed races of man- 
kind in a Christian brotherhood. And if this de- 
sire of the Master, and purpose of his church, shall 
ever be accomplished in this world, his humblest fol- 
lowers everywhere must live and work in that same 
fellowship. And this is made more evident as we 
see the day-dawn of a world democracy. 

"As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, 
so walk in him." 

98 



Stj* aim? $tntt 



SALEM, W. VA. 
NOVEMBER p, jgiS 



THE TRUE PEACE 

But they shall sit every man under his 
vine and under his fig tree; and none 
shall make them afraid: for the mouth 
of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken it. 
Micah 4: 4. 

TV /TICAH was a contemporary of Isaiah, and both 
.IV J. were younger contemporaries of Amos and 
Hosea. It was at this period of Israel's history that 
Hebrew prophecy reached its high- water mark of 
religious conviction and ethical teaching. These were 
men of knowledge and breadth of vision, and they 
possessed courage and conviction. /Withal, they 
had a zeal and devotion which sent them through 
the country, flaming messengers of the divine evangel. 
They differed from each other both in temperament 
and in training, but were alike faithful in proclaiming 
the truths of Jehovah to a faithless people. 

Isaiah was a man of the court, familiar with mat- 
ters of government, and presenting the viewpoint of 
the statesman. Micah, like Amos, was a village 
dweller, and represented rural folk, and the viewpoint 
of the countryside. Both were men of vision, and 
were able to foresee because they had the ability to 
see. They were familiar with Israel's history, as 
their references to her past will abundantly prove. 
They knew also the conditions in the midst of which 
they lived. They saw and felt the relation of the 
past and the present to the future. Above all, they 

101 



were able ,to see the purposes of Jehovah in the his- 
tory of his people, could discern the trend of present 
events, and knew how to reprove, admonish and en- 
courage their fellow-countrymen to the end that the 
kingdom of God should come. While these men were 
very practical in their preaching, they were also 
dreamers. The mere dreamer is out of touch with 
his own age and can affect it but little; on the other 
hand, the man who never dreams but who lives in 
complete consistency with the thought of his own time 
can not carry his generation forward toward the 
higher goal. The passage which I read and which 
gives us a picture of peace, vivid and sublime, and 
which is thrown in here in the midst of the prophet's 
denunciation of Israel's sin, gives ample evidence of 
his ability to dream of a better future. 

This passage [Micah 4: 1-3] is found also in 
Isaiah. It is not likely that one copied from the other. 
It may be that both copied from an earlier writing. 
But whether original with Micah or not, it must be 
taken as an expression of his own sentiment, and as 
his picture of the future. The verse which I have 
chosen as my text is not found in Isaiah. It could 
be written only by one who is familiar with pastoral 
life, a lover of country scenes and of quiet haunts in 
vineyard and orchard. "But they shall sit every man 
under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall 
make them afraid : for the mouth of Jehovah of hosts 
hath spoken it." 

Our pulse-beat quickened day before yesterday 
as we excitedly passed the news along that Germany 
had surrendered ; which would mean that the world 
was at peace. We held ourselves in reserve because 
there was some doubt in every mind as to the authen- 

102 



ticity of the report, but there was given a foretaste 
of the joy /that will flow from every heart when the 
news is confirmed that peace reigns in a world for 
four years torn asunder by war and bloodshed and 
carnage. "Peace!" How our hearts bound within 
us as we contemplate that glorious time which is draw- 
ing near. The day dawns. The black night in which 
the race has been engulfed is passing, the threatening 
cloud which settled down over our earth four years 
ago, and rolled steadily westward boding disaster and 
death, is being driven back, and soon we shall breathe 
a glad relief in the triumph of our arms in Europe. 
Then our boys will come back home; perhaps in the 
glad spring of next year, or in the fruitful summer 
time, or in the golden autumn. They will return, 
and with them we will sit down under our own vine 
and fig tree and none shall make us afraid. The hand 
of the cruel Hun will have been stayed, and the pall 
that has held us will have been lifted; the fear that 
has followed us day and night will have been taken 
away by the reassuring voice of our own loved ones 
at our side. 

But words would fail a readier tongue than mine 
in picturing the happy scene that will take place in a 
million American homes when normal conditions shall 
be restored in the return of an absent loved one. But 
if we are wanting in eloquence to describe such a 
happy condition, there is little need for such an at- 
tempt, for we are all so much a part of these experi- 
ences that each may be trusted to his own imagination 
to draw a picture that any words of mine would only 
mar. 

Happy condition, when a free nation, having 
freed the world from the dominance of an arrogant 

103 



military autocracy, turns again to the pursuits of 
peace in the happy contemplation of the high service it 
has rendered to mankind. "They shall sit every man 
under his vine and under his fig tree ; and none shall 
make them afraid." And I dare to use in this same 
connection the third clause of the text, "For the mouth 
of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken it." Conscious of 
the frailty of men, and cognizant that mistakes have 
been made, nevertheless I see in the Christian ideal- 
ism of America, which has been interpreted by our 
noble President in messages so phrased that the na- 
tions of the earth will listen, — I see, in this, 1 say, the 
spirit of the Master, — and hear the voice of Jehovah 
God. 

But my purpose this morning is not to lead you 
to reflect upon the blessings of national peace secured 
by the force of arms, except as such contemplation 
carries us to the consideration of our obligations in 
view of the changed conditions. The reign of Jesus 
Christ in the earth, and the peace of the kingdom of 
heaven, will not be secured by an armistice in Europe, 
or by Germany's signing the peace terms of the Allies, 
however wisely and judiciously such terms have been 
prepared. That event will simply mark the beginning 
of a new period in the progress of the Kingdom, and 
a new opportunity for the Christian Church. A 
bleeding and crushed humanity will wait the healing 
ministry of Christian benevolence, jealousy and hatred 
will need to be wiped away in the atoning blood of 
Jesus Christ, made more readily available through 
the vicarious sacrifice of our heroic soldiers. For I 
have no doubt those who have suffered most will be 
readiest to forgive. If the world is not lifted to a 
higher level following this baptism of fire and blood, 

104 



then it will sink to a lower. If we get the notion 
that by might we can set the world right, or if we 
breathe in the spirit of hate and revenge, then we may- 
have defeated the Hun but he shall have captured us. 
To win this war and then lose our Christian ideals 
would be the greatest calamity of history. To secure 
the collapse of the false civilization which Germany 
thought to impose upon the world, then to clear away 
the debris and begin to construct upon solid founda- 
tion a new civilization after the pattern of Jesus, 
would be to make secure for all time the legitimate 
fruits of our sacrifice. 

Among the hopeful signs of the times is the move- 
ment toward world prohibition, which the war has 
accelerated. Since the last election the boozeless 
States have been increased to thirty-one. And we 
look forward to a saloonless nation in the not distant 
future. Already an international organization has 
been established to promote the reform in other 
countries. The securing of a sober citizenship will 
go far toward the promotion of other needed reforms. 

The proposed League of Nations, which has long 
been advocated by modern prophets of the Kingdom 
of Peace, is finding new and powerful advocates, not 
only in America, but in all lands. Again we believe 
our President is right when he, with other good Amer- 
icans, refuses to give his approval to the formation of 
such a league until after the war. Then our enemy 
shall have an equal opportunity for membership with 
other nations. Not to give them this chance would 
be to continue the old system of forming rival alliances. 
Men are dreaming of a world-brotherhood, and they 
are not stopping there. They are agitating and advo- 
cating and educating and organizing to that end. These 

105 



seem to be some of the outstanding moral by-products 
of this war. But let it be understood these movements 
have their roots in the past and are the fruits of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is a Gospel of Peace. 
They are the legitimate outgrowth of Christian educa- 
tion, and can be ripened only under the fostering care 
of the Christian Church, and in the favorable atmos- 
phere of the Christian home. 

The war was the subject of conversation around 
the dinner table in our home some time ago, and the 
cruelty of the German Emperor was spoken of. Our 
five-year-old, who had had no part in the conversation, 
put in with this unaffected statement, "The Kaiser 
ought to have been taught better when he was little." 
And she was right. How much evil and misery there 
is in the world because men have been wrongly taught. 
If Christian ideals are to be given our young people, 
and Christian principles inculcated in them, great 
responsibility rests upon the Home, and Church and 
School. 

Allow me to quote from a pointed editorial in a 
recent issue of the Continent. 

It is an essential element of war that it drains the powei 
of nations. When this one ends, much of the world will 
be suffering from shell shock, the ponderous weight of the 
war having come down on it crushingly. Much of the 
world will not know exactly what is the matter. Where 
will it go to find out what the trouble is and what the cure 
of it may be? 

There can be no discounting the helpful replies that 
will be given by diplomacy and international law and com- 
merce and economics. Education and science and philosophy 
have something to say and should be heeded. The ultimate 
reply will need to strike a deeper note than any of them 
can sound. The trouble runs deeper than they move. 

What hurts in war is its uptearing of fibers of humanity 

106 



that lie at the vital center. It is religion that is most fully 
involved in the war. The message it has to bring is the 
one most obviously involved, both in its failure when war 
comes and in its service when war ends. It is by a sound 
intuition that more fault has been found with religion than 
with science or commerce in connection with this particular 
war. And it is by equally sound reasoning that religious 
leaders are gradually coming to see that it is exactly religion 
that has been most responsible for the war. It was mistaken 
religion that let Germany form its strange obsession out of 
which the war came. It was a religion of human brother- 
hood that made Great Britain restless in the presence of the 
outrage of a small nation. It was religion that made Amer- 
ica finally enter on its sacrificial and self- forgetful way. 
Reading the story in lighter terms is to miss its real meaning. 

And it will be religion that will have the final word to 
say about what the cure shall be. Men need to know more, 
but they already know enough to see that their relations have 
gone wrong. More trade will help, wiser and franker diplom- 
acy will help — anything will help that draws men together. 
But the final help must come from the changing hearts of 
men and spirits of men. 

| 
I wish to repeat two sentences which express my 

own conviction, and the conviction of an increasing 
number of Christian men and women everywhere. "It 
will be religion that will have the final word to say 
about what the cure shall be." "The final help must 
come from the changing of hearts and spirits of men." 
Like the prophets of old we are getting a world 
vision, and are reading every matter concerned with 
human welfare in world terms. As never before since 
Jesus went away, having commissioned his disciples 
to go into all the world with his Gospel, men are seek- 
ing to realize the Kingdom of jHeaven on earth. This 
is in harmony with the prayer which Jesus taught his 
disciples, "Thy kingdom come" ; and progress is made 
as we get his spirit of love and depend upon his method 

107 



of contagion. We believe the church is right when 
it puts the emphasis on brotherhood, and seeks to in- 
clude the world in that fraternal fellowship. But we 
must not forget that a brotherhood is made up of 
brothers. If we can make men brothers in spirit and 
in conduct the result will be a brotherhood. This is 
a thing that can not be accomplished in the mass, there- 
fore, but one by one. This is bringing the recon- 
struction of the world to a religious basis, where we 
have said it must rest. The tremendous responsibility, 
therefore, that rests upon Christians, and the unpar- 
alleled opportunities which lie before them, call first of 
all for a serious and careful heart-searching. 

I am not here to search hearts this morning. I 
am not fit for so delicate and sacred a task. But 
may we not all, preacher and people, approach the holy 
presence of our heavenly Master in the spirit of hu- 
mility and penitence in order that we may experience 
his cleansing. There is a form of morbid introspec- 
tion which does not make for spiritual health. But 
few of us in these stirring days are likely to err in 
going too far in that direction. As the unsettlement 
and upheaval of the world's nervous system is becom- 
ing evident, we need to pause and get our bearings. 
And this we can not do by merely Tooking around us. 
The world's standards are set up all about us. They 
are shutting out the light of heaven. We must look 
above them and into the face of Jesus or we shall be 
swamped in the passing pleasures and giddy infatua- 
tion of an unhallowed social life. I do not fear that 
we shall be dragged down by gross sin and debasing 
influences. We are too refined for that. I fear lest 
we shall lose our souls in a too amiable attitude toward 
life ; one that will blind our eyes to its subtle tempta- 

108 



tions. Paul gave safe counsel to the Thessalonians 
when he told them to avoid the appearance of evil. 
He set the standard for his own life where every Chris- 
tian must set it when he said, "If meat causeth my 
brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for ever- 
more." That was the act of a brother. A com- 
munity of people acting from such motives fulfills the 
prophecy of Micah concerning the Kingdom of Peace. 
Every life so lived is patterned after the life of Jesus 
and is helping to bring in his kingdom. 

I wish I were able to give our young people a 
vision of the world and its need as I see it. Let me 
read again, this time from the Red Cross magazine. 

Girls and boys of America, you are the hope of the 
world! We have a rich country. We have not been touched 
by war. Not really touched by it. Not touched as Belgium 
and France and England have been touched, clutched, 
throttled, flung down by it ! You who are ten, twelve, four- 
teen, fifteen, sixteen or seventeen now will, probably, not 
be closely touched by it at all. Your brothers may go to 
fight for freedom on the sea or in France; but you, Bill 
and Jack and George and Mary and Susan and Jane, will 
stay at home, and do — what? 

That's the great question. At bottom, it's the greatest 
question confronting this dear country of ours. At bottom, 
it's greater than any question of guns or money or potatoes 
or submarines or party politics — the question, in the nation's 
crisis is : What are you girls and boys of America going 
to do? 

You can carry this responsibility and be glorious. You 
can throw it off, and be damned; but you can not ignore it. 

You are the hope of the world! And are you, while 
your country strips for battle and your brothers prepare 
themselves to fight for what America has always fought 
for — "Liberty" — are you going on dancing and spinning on 
your ear and going to the movies and the music shows and 
loafing at street corners and reading the sporting page and 
dolling up your figure and your face? Or are you going to 

m 



wake up suddenly to the emptiness and the ugliness of all 
this, and throw it aside, crying, "By crickets, there are big 
things in this world, and, by all that's clean in me and true 
in me and brave in me and American in me, I'm going out 
to find them and give my heart and soul to them and make 
myself a part of them so that, as far as I am concerned, the 
hope of the world shall be fulfilled!" 

Young America, what are you going to do? 

Parents need equally with their children a vision 
of the Kingdom that is to be. There is no more sacred 
duty for parents than to peer into the future with all 
the yearning of soul that God has given them, in order 
that they shall be able to direct the feet of their chil- 
dren, not only in safe paths, but in paths of service. 
And such will be the paths of peace. 

"But they shall sit every man under his vine and 
under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: 
for the mouth of Jehovah of hosts hath spoken it." 
As we look forward to a time of national peace, when 
families shall be reunited and normal conditions re- 
stored about us, let us not forget that true peace is a 
matter of the soul. If we have been joined in spirit 
to Jesus Christ, and are members of his Kingdom, 
nothing can sever that relationship or mar the joy we 
feel in his fellowship and in the fellowship of his fol- 
lowers. Here is a peace that stands every test of time. 
Not all the boys will come back when the war is over. 
Many a family circle will be broken never to be made 
whole again in this life. The peace of Jesus Christ 
and of the Father in heaven enfolds the bereaved of 
earth in its comforting embrace. Those who have it 
here look confidently forward to its full fruition in the 
Kingdom of the Father, where there will be no night 
of sorrow, but the glory of the Lord shines undimmed 
through one eternal day. 

no 



'Amrtlpr Jiag" 



8ALEM, W. VA. 
DECEMBER 2i t iqi8 



"ANOTHER WAY" 

And being warned of God in a dream 
that they should not return to Herod, 
they departed into their own country an- 
other way. Matthew 2 : 12. 

TT is a good thing for the Christian world once a year 
■*■ to gather about the manger-bed of the Babe of 
Bethlehem. Time has brought us again to that an- 
nual event, and how different are the world-conditions 
at this Christmas time from what they were one year 
ago. Then the heavenly anthems of the angel choir 
were drowned by the screech and boom and clatter 
of a world conflict. Then the star shining in the heav- 
ens to guide our steps to the cradle of the King was 
almost lost from sight in a sky overcast by the black 
cloud of the Great War. Today swords have been 
sheathed and guns are silent, and our souls are attuned 
to anthems of peace and good will. Today we ap- 
proach with softened step that sacred shrine, and 
stand with heads uncovered in the birth-room of the 
Savior of the world, reverently and unafraid. The 
occasion is auspicious, and the time is opportune for 
a most blessed experience in the observance this year 
of the anniversary of the birth of Jesus. Christmas 
should mean more to us than it has ever meant be- 
fore, and the Christ whom we honor in its celebration 
should from this day take a larger place in the life 
of the world. 

Christmas may mean more but it will depend upon 

113 



us. On that first Christinas Day the announcement 
of the birth of the Savior troubled Herod, but it 
brought joy to the shepherds. Today it will depend 
upon what our attitude is toward the Master as to the 
effect of Christmas on our lives. As the pathway of 
our life runs through the twenty-fifth day of Decem- 
ber, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred eighteen, 
and on out into the future, that path no doubt will be 
deflected one way or the other if we seriously con- 
template our Lord's claim to our life's allegiance. The 
important question therefore is, What is our relation 
to him who so many years ago was born King of the 
Jews, and who today lives and reigns over all the 
world ? As we follow the Wise Men in doing homage 
to the world's King shall we return by the same old 
road of pleasure and pride, or shall we like them, 
"return another way." The star did not guide the 
Wise Men as definitely as we have sometimes reck- 
oned, for they went by way of Jerusalem, the capital 
of the Jews, and inquired, as a matter of course, of 
the ruler who reigned there. It is a beautiful tradi- 
tion which General Lew Wallace weaves into the early 
chapters of his "Tale of the Christ," but it isn't likely 
that all the movements of the Wise Men were on the 
magic plane there described. They felt their way with 
some uncertainty, and tried the voices that offered 
them counsel. They came bowing to royalty, and 
seeking guidance from earthly potentates, but "they 
returned to their own country another way" — the way 
of heavenly counsel, and of the quiet conference to- 
gether of kindred spirits. And their experience thus 
interpreted is symbolic of the experience of men who 
come face to face with the Master. The shepherds 
watching their sheep, dull-eyed and listless, were 

114 



aroused by the heavenly apparition, and doubtless 
moved through curiosity, visited the stable to which 
they had been directed, but they returned with won- 
der-open eyes, full of joy and praise. They may have 
returned to their shepherding by the same route, but 
in a more important sense they returned ' 'another way" 
— the way of joy and hope. 

As the fishermen were sitting in their boats mend- 
ing their nets, they saw no inspiring prospect ahead. 
No doubt they were bent on being successful fisher- 
men, and devoted themselves to the development of 
the trade, but they saw nothing beyond a business suc- 
cess, and a comfortable competence in material things. 
But there passes by a fellow-Galilean with a spring 
in his step and a gleam in his eye and with a tone of 
authority in his voice that never was before ; and these 
young men left their father in the boat with, the hired 
servants and followed Jesus. Morning after morning 
they had come out to the lake and their work, and 
every evening they had returned, by the way of the 
market, to their comfortable homes and the bed on the 
roof. But today they went "another way." In the 
companionship of him who had nowhere to lay his 
head they walked out into a new world and a new life : 
a world of service and a life of blessing and joy. 

One day as Jesus sat by the well weary, there 
came a woman, a despised Samaritan woman, to draw 
water. The conversation seemed commonplace enough 
at first, but soon it was driving straight toward the 
blackened life of the woman. She saw the course it 
was taking and did not welcome it, but sought to di- 
vert its practical trend by arguing traditional points 
of religion which separated Jews from Samaritans. 
This is not the last time that sin has tried to hide itself 

115 



in a religious disputation. But this was no common 
Jew, for he tore away tradition and went straight to 
the heart of the woman, leading her to a penitent con- 
fession of her sin. No doubt she went back to the 
village by the same path over which she had come, 
but with a new hope and a new joy, a new sense of 
salvation and forgiveness of sins. She went home 
"another way," and to live a different life. For ought 
I know it was still necessary for her to make her daily 
visit to the well to draw water. Her feet may have 
become weary and her arms may have ached on many 
a day following this memorable conversation with 
Jesus. But her conscience was clear and her heart 
was light, and she daily lived in the refreshing satis- 
faction which comes from drinking freely and con- 
stantly of the water of life. 

Not every life that came in contact with the Mas- 
ter during his earth ministry was helped thereby. We 
may carry such a spirit into the Christmas season that 
the pathway of our life shall diverge farther from the 
way of peace and holiness. Herod could not answer 
the question of those who inquired as to where the 
King should be born, but he became concerned at 
once, and was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. 
His sinful self-seeking and his fear of a rival blinded 
him to the beauty and innocence of the Bethlehem 
Babe, and to the glory that shone in the world on that 
first Christmas Day. The knowledge that a King was 
born but provoked him to more wicked deeds, and 
confirmed him in his sinful life. So we can not go 
through this Christmas time and be the same. Either 
we will go out into the new year in closer companion- 
ship with the Master, and sweetened in life through 

116 



fellowship with his spirit, or we will be driven farther 
from him as we seek our own selfish ends. 

Near the end of the Master's earth ministry we 
have the case of the young man who came running, 
eager and hopeful, but who went away sorrowful. He 
is one to admire, and as he unaffectedly rehearses his 
past faithfulness in keeping the commandments, Jesus 
looked upon him and loved him. But Jesus is on his 
way to Jerusalem for the last time. He is in need of 
companions who, after his death, will become apostles, 
missionaries of the cross. What an opportunity lay 
before this clean, obedient and manly youth. No 
wonder some one has named this incident "The Great 
Refusal." Jesus made him the offer, but he did not 
accept it. He held too near his eyes the things he 
was asked to give up, and could not see the greatness 
of the offer held out to him in the invitation to follow 
Jesus. He went away sorrowful. Sorrowful, but he 
went away. And the offer was never repeated, for 
Jesus never passed that way again. 

The power of Jesus to direct the course of men's 
lives was not lessened at his death ; rather, was it made 
more potent. An early and conspicuous illustration 
of the potency of his resurrected life is found in the 
experience of Paul on his way to Damascus. Armed 
with the necessary authority and spurred by the zeal 
of a conscientious but misguided religionist, breathing 
out threatenings against the followers of Jesus, Paul 
was on his way to Damascus to apprehend and to kill 
all that might be found in that city who were of the 
new Way. But the risen Lord whom Paul persecuted 
met him on that Syrian road and changed the course 
of his whole life. Paul was on his way to Damascus 
carrying death and destruction, but he came back "an- 

117 



other way," and became the chief of the apostles and 
the daring and faithful missionary. Him whom he 
had hated he now loved with a holy passion, and the 
gospel which he had despised he now preached with 
eloquence and power. 

Time would fail me to speak of Augustine, 
Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, John Wesley, and 
Samuel and Tacy Hubbard, and all the saints of 
ancient and modern times who have gone to "their own 
country another way," having seen the Christ. 

We have heard a good deal about "morale" during 
this war. The one thing necessary to maintain morale, 
or morals, among men is motive. There may be arti- 
ficial motives provided, or motives that are genuine 
but temporary, all of which may serve a good purpose. 
But the only all-impelling, all-inclusive, enduring 
motive is the Christian motive. Only personal con- 
tact with Jesus can give that. I gave one day's 
service in the early autumn to the county draft board. 
At the end of the forenoon's examinations the regis- 
trants who had passed the physical examination were 
assembled to hear a lecture by one of the physicians. 
His speech was in the nature of a warning against 
social vice, and especially against a certain race^ 
destroying disease. The motive which he emphasized 
was that of fear, fear of being found out. It was 
good enough as far as it went. I was glad to know, 
and to have the young men who were about to be 
inducted into army service to know, just what meas- 
ures the Government was taking to ferret out and 
stamp out this curse to the race. But to stop where 
he did seemed to me to be an insult to the integrity 
and purity of the great majority of the young men 
addressed. I wanted to supplement the doctor's 

118 



speech by an appeal to higher motives, and I am sure 
such an appeal would have met with a response. Per- 
sonal allegiance to Jesus Christ will carry our boys all 
the way through the war, and through the peculiarly 
trying days of a slow demobilization. Private Coral 
Davis told me this week that the morale of the soldiers 
in camp broke when the armistice was signed. The 
motive had been removed, and the boys were working 
hard to keep out of work, and would hide behind a pine 
tree six inches in diameter to dodge it. Captain 
Davis writes from France that sick calls are frequent 
from boys who try to avoid drill; boys who when the 
fight was on would march till they dropped, and then 
get up and "carry on." I do not mean, and these 
men did not mean, that the boys are going to pieces. 
But the great incentive to drill and maneuver and 
march having been removed, it is but natural that there 
should be a tendency to ease up and let down. My 
point is that if a life is to be held steady to any course 
there must be motive. And the only thing that will 
keep men morally true and spiritually strong is a life 
intelligently loyal to Jesus Christ and heartily devoted 
to the Christian cause. 

Captain Swiger tells of an experience in Camp 
Sherman before he went across, when a southern negro 
was up before a military court. It seems he was a 
bad negro, and several of the colored soldiers had 
assembled their razors and joined forces, and had 
slashed him up pretty badly. The first question asked 
the darkey on trial was, "What is your name?" To 
which he responded, "Down home in Oklahoma I am 
'Bad Bill,' but here I am going to be 'Sweet William.' " 
It was an apt and fetching answer no doubt. But it 
will take something else than a court martial to send 

jig 



Bad Bill back to his own country another way. The 
spirit of Christ can do that, and no doubt is doing that 
for many of our soldiers. In the trenches or over the 
top, facing reality, they have seen Jesus, and will re- 
turn to their own country "another way." 

What is true of individuals is true also of institu- 
tions, communities and nations. When in the white 
light of the Master the hideousness of a public evil is 
revealed, the forces of righteousness are organized to 
eradicate it from the body politic. A case in point is 
the passing of human slavery. Slavery was doomed 
when Jesus came, for there was set going those prin- 
ciples of brotherhood, the spread of which meant death 
to slavery. But long years went by before the public 
conscience was sufficiently aroused and cIl-; Church 
awake :ied to the fa'*t mat slavery was a constant denial 
of brotherhood. When the truth was made evident 
chattel slavery was wiped from the face of the earth. 
Intemperance has outlived slavery because it is in- 
trenched not only in the avarice but in the appetites 
of men. But our great country is going "another 
way," and next Wednesday morning we will witness 
the last Christmas sun rising over a licensed American 
saloon. War, too, is taking its place on the dump- 
heap of discarded diabolical inventions of the devil, 
dubbed a god by the Germans. You may wonder why 
I speak with such confidence when the world Is even 
now only resting under an armistice, following the 
most destructive and diabolical war of all history. I 
bank much upon a league of nations. But a league of 
nations will be but a result, a logical effect of a com- 
pelling cause. That cause is the dominating spirit of 
Christianity that dwells in the heart of the victors, and 
moves in the councils which shall determine the terms 



120 



of peace. Never before has war looked so hideous to 
the eyes of the world. It has always been a frightful 
and cruel monster in the eyes of those who have the 
viewpoint of the Master, but never before has the in- 
consistency of war with Christianity been so evident. 
It had never occurred to the world before that the 
Church should prevent war. There have always been 
those who were willing to accept the responsibility for 
beginning war, and to glory in it. Not so in this war. 
The very fact that the Church has been held respon- 
sible for war is the most hopeful sign of the end. In 
this war the power of the Church has been illustrated, 
its spirit has been revealed; yea, its life has been de- 
veloped and its mission broadened, until today Chris- 
tianity stands before the world vindicated and trusted. 
My hope is not in President Wilson, who has broken 
another precedent and crossed the ocean to sit with 
others who gather about the peace table, except as I 
believe his ideals and principles represent the enlight- 
ened conscience not only of Christian America, but of 
the Allies as well. 

Some one has said that the bulk of the argument 
was against the President's going to Europe, but that 
the weight of the argument was for it. However that 
may be, I have no patience with the argument from 
precedent. We want to get away from the past and 
go "another way." Repeatedly Lloyd-George has 
counseled his countrymen not to hark back to the pre- 
war conditions. "What we want," he says, "is a dif- 
ferent world." And we must divest ourselves of the 
easy-going notion that matters will right themselves 
unaided, and that by the guidance of some magic hand 
humanity will be steered in a right future course. It 
will require thought and study and prayer, it will call 



121 



for work and energy and effort. Already the consti- 
tutionally reactionary, and those who have selfish ends 
to serve, are crying, "Business as before," and are 
seeking to order social and economic relations after the 
same selfish purposes. It will require the organized 
and consecrated efforts of all who believe in the broth- 
erhood of man, to stem these counter currents that are 
rising to the surface of society at the first prospect of 
peace. 

Great issues are upon us. Trends are being given 
to human relationships that will lead far out into the 
future. This is not the time to seek an easy life. 
Neither is it a time for discouragement or despondency. 
The future is before us, big with possibility and 
promising in rewards for faithful service ; the rewards 
of accomplishment in a worth-while cause. Many 
who would have been helpful in the reconstruction of 
a waiting world gave their brave lives to usher in this 
fateful day. Let us consecrate ourselves to the holy 
task which their sacrifice has placed upon us. 

As we come into the presence of the Prince of 
Peace at this Christmas time, during the world 
armistice, let us determine by the help of God, and so 
far as our power goes, to convert the armistice into a 
peace genuine and lasting. When we have offered 
here our gifts to the King let us return to our homes 
and out into the future "another way," the way of 
consecration and service, the way of the holy guidance 
and blessed companionship of the Son of Mary, God's 
Christmas gift to the world. 



122 



A Sntomtnatumal HSutlirtttg 



MILTON, WIS. 
JANUARY 26, 1918 



A DENOMINATIONAL BUILDING 

And they said, Let us rise up and 
build. Nehemiah 2 : 18b. 

TT is my purpose to consider with you a specific 
•*• matter, one that has been committed to the Tract 
Board by the General Conference. The subject of a 
denominational Publishing House is one that concerns 
all our people. It is an enterprise that can not be 
brought to a successful conclusion without the support 
and hearty co-operation of all the churches. What- 
ever your present attitude toward this matter may be, 
it is a fair assumption, I am sure, that nothing but good 
can come from a discussion among brethren of any 
question which involves our future service to the 
world. 

I say "our service to the world/' and somehow 
that word "world" has a content of meaning that is 
new in my experience. As I speak it there is a sort 
of clutch in my throat and a welling of pity in my 
heart ; for it brings before me a picture of a struggling, 
sin-sick, and lost humanity. The tragedy of these 
days brings to us a keen sense of the undone condition 
of the race. "Lost" and "saved," and "sin" and "sal- 
vation" are familiar as technical terms of religion. But 
they had about lost their meaning for practical use 
because they represented relations to a religious system, 
rather than conditions in life. We are beginning to 
see what wreckage can be wrought by nations pro- 
fessing Christianity, when loyalty to the Christ spirit 

125 



is lacking. This has raised the question as to whether 
Christianity has failed. And we must answer the 
question in the affirmative. Christianity has failed. 
But we hasten to say it is Christianity the system that 
has failed, and not the Christianity of Jesus. Faith 
in Jesus Christ, a faith that regenerates life, individual 
and national, is still the hope of the world. And it 
begins to look as though that faith was to be given a 
trial. At least since everything else has failed it would 
seem that the Christianity. of Jesus might come in for a 
better chance. 

The cross will mean more to many of us after the 
war, because it will suggest not darkened rooms with 
lighted candles and burning tapers, but quivering flesh 
and agonizing pain, and sacrifice in a glorious cause. 
Mr. Brittling is not the only man who is finding his 
way through the trappings of a defunct religion to a 
vital faith in an accessible and living God. Not all 
the tribe of whom Donald Hankey writes will be killed 
in battle. Some of them will return. As a result of 
this present conflict the number of those men is being 
multiplied who, starting from the outer rim of life's 
casual and incidental contacts, are working from an 
experience of service to humanity inward toward life's 
center. If these men are to find religion satisfying 
and sufficient they must not be allowed to fail to find 
the true center of all life, their own and the world's, 
Jesus Christ. This is the great task confronting the 
church. This service must be rendered by a forward 
booking people, and through a vitalized and living 
church. 

Most of us have been led early in life to the foot 
of the cross, and have there been taught that the way 
of life is the way of sacrifice and service. But not 

126 



always have we passed beyond the theory to the actual 
living of that life. We began right. (We found the 
correct starting point. But we have not always pushed 
out into the field of human need in order that the sal- 
vation of Jesus, mediated through us, might do its 
saving work. This is the task that challenges the 
church. This is the high service to which she is 
called. I accept for the denomination to which I 
belong an equal responsibility with every other in the 
world service. It is a task for the whole Christian 
Church. Other communions share with us the vision 
of what the church must be to meet the world's need. 
I claim for my denomination at least a potential fitness 
to represent its Lord not possessed by others. 

The Christianity that has failed is a Christianity 
without a Sabbath, and such was not the Christianity 
of Jesus, with which his disciples set out to win the 
world. The Sabbath was lost when Christianity was 
captured by the world, and Sunday-keeping, however 
conscientiously followed today, is a part of that 
apostasy which has brought about, a defunct Chris- 
tianity and a defeated church. The church then that 
shall carry that faith which will revitalize humanity 
and rehabilitate the world will be a Sabbath-keeping 
church. Is this too much to say? Friends, I but 
speak my earnest conviction. Confronted by the 
collapse of civilization and by the church's tremendous 
failure, I dare not trust in this dark hour of the world 
any faith, however elaborate or refined, except the 
faith lived and taught by Jesus of Nlazareth. It may 
be that twenty centuries more shall pass while hu- 
manity staggers on in its self-chosen way, and it may 
be sooner than we dare to hope, but truth as it is in 
Jesus shall conquer the world. If we are right in this 

127 



conviction, how it magnifies the importance of the 
mission of an evangelical, Sabbath-keeping church. 
It is because in my own mind this outlook for the 
future of the denomination involves the question now 
agitating the Tract Board that I gladly join in its 
discussion. 

Were you to ask me whether I think the future 
success of Seventh Day Baptists depends upon our 
building immediately a Denominational Home, I 
should have to answer frankly, No. Again should you 
ask whether to my mind the completion of such a 
building would insure the future prosperity of our 
people, I should again have to answer in the negative. 
We must be a people Christ-led and Spirit-filled, united 
and broadly aggressive, if we are to meet the call of 
God. Nothing physical, material; nothing external 
will equip us for the world service that waits us out 
yonder. This equipment must be spiritual, born of 
constant prayer and of a devout study of the Word of 
God. But we live in a physical world as well as in a 
spiritual, and physical objects are the necessary and 
divinely appointed media for the transmission of spir- 
itual truth. A house is not a home. But a house in 
which there dwells a family that lives out the ideal 
relations of husband and wife, parents and children, 
brothers and sisters, hosts and guests, that house both 
symbolizes and promotes ideal home relations. Just 
so I seem to see the faith and life of our Seventh Day 
Baptist family symbolized in a denominational build- 
ing. I see our ideals of Christian life and service 
objectized in a building which has been erected by the 
contributions of thousands of our people, who have 
made it an altar of sacrifice and an offering of love. 

I wish to say right here that I have no desire to 

128 



discuss the location of such a building. I am not sure 
that I am decided in my own mind in the matter. This 
is a matter concerning which I shall hope to carry an 
open mind. To discuss it here would seem to me to 
be puerile. And to advocate any particular locality 
because to locate the building there would insure larger 
offerings from the people of that section is a confession 
of ignorance on the part of the one who speaks, or else 
it is a betrayal of a spirit in certain churches that will 
kill us "deader than a door-nail" if we do not rise above 
it. Brethren, my confidence is in the people. Of 
course this is a matter that will have to be settled if 
we decide to build. But it will be held in abeyance 
until the larger question is disposed of, and in due 
time it will be settled in the democratic and Christian 
way. 

There is another matter which I should mention 
perhaps that does not affect in the least my position on 
this question. That is the present personnel of the 
Tract Board. In the first place they are but the ser- 
vants of the denomination. As faithful servants and 
as Christian brethren they are trying in this instance, 
as in others, to work out the will of the General Con- 
ference. It is their duty to submit t£> the people this 
matter of a building, since as faithful brethren and 
members with us they have a right to initiate a move- 
ment, and to endeavor to enlist the support of the 
churches in any enterprise which seems to them to be 
in the line of progress. 

In the second place we are planning for gen- 
erations yet unborn, as well as for the immediate 
future. No personal prejudice or bias of mind should 
interfere with an open-minded consideration of this 
question. A Denominational Home, if one is built, 

129 



will stand as a monument to our faith and a symbol of 
loyalty when the present members of the Tract Board, 
together with the rest of us mortals, have gone the way 
of all the earth. 

Again, I am not advocating the erection of a 
building next summer or the summer following. No 
doubt it will be the part of wisdom to wait until after 
the heavy demands of the war are past. I mean the 
demands for material and men. I do most earnestly 
urge, however, the speedy launching of the plan to 
finance the proposed enterprise. I should like to see 
it endorsed, church by church, until the whole denom- 
ination shall be in the full swing of an enthusiastic 
campaign for the necessary funds by the time Con- 
ference meets at Nortonville. What I desire is such 
an interest and enthusiasm as will grow out of an in- 
telligent survey of the facts, a deep conviction of the 
need, and an abiding faith in our future. 

After all I have said, there remains one question 
to be answered. It may be laconically asked in two 
words : '" Why now ?" Why take the present time with 
its heavy burdens and multiplied appeals to press the 
question of a denominational building? I shall name 
the reasons that appeal to me. I know not how they 
appear to you. I ask for them simply an impartial 
consideration. I must say that for myself they are 
convincing. 

My first reason for adopting a building program 
for the immediate future is because it has not been 
done before. It is an addition to our denominational 
assets already long overdue. As individual churches 
we recognize the value of a meeting house. We build 
not only that we may have a convenient place to wor- 
ship; but each church building is a symbol of per- 

130 



manence, and inspires faith in the future. The build- 
ing itself, or in an older organization the history of its 
successive buildings, preserves the continuity of the 
church's life. We have erected splendid buildings 
which stand today as monuments to our devotion to 
the cause of education. We can not estimate their 
value to the denomination. Just why we have come 
up to the closing years of the second decade of this 
twentieth century with no such building to express our 
denominational life and unity, I can not say. I have 
no fault to find. Our fathers have done well. But 
this may go to show that after all we have not given 
rightful place to the one distinguishing faith that has 
kept us a peculiar people through these centuries. Or it 
may be a silent witness to our lack of denominational 
unity. It may be simply because no one has put the 
matter on the hearts of the people. If in view of this 
third possibility some of us now seem over-zealous, 
please forgive our earnestness; but do not shut your 
hearts to our appeal. 

I am in favor of making this campaign now, in 
the second place, because I believe that in time of war 
we should prepare for peace. I am not unaware of 
the tremendous issues involved in the present titanic 
struggle with determined autocracy. I have some 
sense of the significance to the world of the victory of 
the Allies. It is the duty of every American citizen 
to do his bit, which is his best, for the triumph of de- 
mocracy. But when the war has been won we will 
simply have made the opportunity for building a new 
world order. The materials for a new Christian civ- 
ilization will have been released. It will still be neces- 
sary to fuse them into a homogeneous and living social 
order. This can be done only by the Divine Spirit 

.131 



working through men who are obedient and trust- 
worthy, and who have the vision to see. A united 
effort now on the part of Seventh Day Baptists to pro- 
vide this better material equipment, will not only add 
a much needed material asset, but will unify us in 
spirit, and give us a running start, as it were, for our 
part in the work of reconstruction. While we are 
making great sacrifices to win the war, let us go far 
enough to make sure that the fruits of our sacrifice 
shall not be lost in an aftermath of spiritual depression. 
There is great danger that we shall come to feel that 
in our support of the nation in this most worthy cause, 
we have laid up merit for the future. We shall be 
tempted to give ourselves to making good our financial 
losses, and feel that we have purchased religious in- 
dulgence by our support of the national cause. We 
shall need a spiritual impetus, and a denominational 
interest that will carry over into the after-the-war 
work of the church. I know of nothing better calcu- 
lated to unify and inspirit our people than working to- 
gether for a Denominational sHome, — at once, a token 
of our love, a symbol of our faith, and an expression 
of hope. While my chief concern in this connection 
is that we shall be of one mind, and that the mind of 
Christ ; while I am anxious above all else that we shall 
be united and spiritually fit, I believe also that the 
money can be raised easier now than it can at the close 
of the war or for some time thereafter. We have 
made no great material sacrifice as yet. But we are 
beginning to learn that we can do without some things 
that we thought were quite necessary to our happiness. 
I believe we will go even further in this direction to our 
spiritual profit, if the call is loud enough and the cause 
is worthy. 



I have one more reason to give for advocating this 
matter now. And I would like to put into it all the 
earnestness at my command. That reason is identical 
with our reason for a separate denominational exist- 
ence. We are a separate people having a worthy his- 
tory running back three hundred years, because we are 
Sabbath-keeping Christians. If the Sabbath means 
nothing we have no reason to exist. If it means little, 
then perhaps we may as well defer any effort for better 
equipment or for a more definite program for dissem- 
inating Sabbath truth. But if it means what we are 
led to infer in view of our history, and in view of the 
teaching of the [Word of God, and of the need of the 
world; then this is an opportune time, and this build- 
ing of a Publishing House an effective way to impress 
ourselves with the greatness of our mission, and to 
show others that we believe in our future. 

Other denominations are neither consistent with 
the Word nor harmonious among themselves on this 
question. The thing most evident in regard to the 
attitude of Sunday-keepers toward the Sabbath ques- 
tion is that they haven't any. Yet it seems to me we 
are approaching that point in the history of the Chris- 
tian Church when nothing that claims to have con- 
structive spiritual value can long be overlooked. The 
war has accelerated a movement in the Christian 
Church to eliminate non-essentials. There is a dispo- 
sition to appraise the denominations, and to pool their 
assets in the interest of Christian efficiency. In such 
a process there is danger of canceling out things of 
real spiritual worth. But no such undertaking can 
proceed very far without the emphasis shifting to the 
essentials. At such a time, which it seems to me we 
are approaching sooner or later, it will mean much to 

i33 



the world if an evangelical, forward-looking Sabbath- 
keeping people can be found ; a people who are united 
and confidently aggressive; whose Sabbath interests 
shall not only be unquestioned, but shall be found to 
head up somewhere in a substantial building, a material 
token of our faith in the eternal spiritual significance 
of the Sabbath of Jehovah. 



134 



Q% gumg atti* t\p &ml 



SALEM, W. VA. 
FEBRUARY 23, iqi8 



THE SONG AND THE SOIL 

How shall we sing Jehovah's song in 
a foreign land? Psalms 137: 4. 

MUSIC is the language of the emotions. Capable 
of infinite possibility of development as the soul 
expands and the feelings become refined and softened, 
singing is one of the most primitive instincts of the 
race. In song the soul gives utterance to the deeper 
feelings that surge within, or lightly trips in joyous 
vein its gayer moods. 

Music is made a vehicle of worship, and on the 
wings of song our prayers of aspiration ascend to the 
throne of Heaven. But on the other hand the "hymn 
of hate" quickens the rapacious advance of the cruel 
barbarian horde, and song becomes an instrument of 
destruction, the devil's very own. 

Because the love of music is one of the primitive 
instincts of the race its place is fundamental in the 
making of character and in the development of social 
consciousness and conscience. We are emotional, as 
well as intellectual, beings, and to fail to cultivate the 
emotions is to make a fatal mistake in our education. 
It has been aptly said that every emotion should be the 
child of truth and the mother of duty. This terse 
statement accords emotion its rightful place in religion. 
Since the emotions do not exist for their own sakes, 
there is no virtue in feelings worked up by cheap 
methods and artificial appeal. 

My own memory goes back to the day in this 

137 



country when feeling was the one thing sought for in 
religious experience, and the only test of conversion. 
Thinking was made all but impossible because every 
instrumentality and every energy was used to secure 
certain expressions of feeling. 

I well remember a favorite revival hymn of those 
days, which ran as follows: 

O Fathers, don't get weary, 
O Fathers, don't get weary, 
O Fathers, don't get weary, 
For the work is going on. 

There you shall wear the lily-white robe, 

There you shall wear the lily-white robe, 

There you shall wear the lily-white robe, 
The robe's all ready now. 

We'll walk up and down the golden streets, 

We'll walk up and down the golden streets, 

We'll walk up and down the golden streets, 
In the New Jerusalem. 

Then the verse was repeated with the substitution 
of the word "mothers" for "fathers," and this was fol- 
lowed again by the double chorus. Then the word 
"brothers" was used in the stanza, then "sisters," 
"neighbors," "classmates," "mourners," and some one 
would even start off with "sinners, don't get weary." 
A questioning smile would pass over the face of the 
doubtful, but as it had the right number of syllables 
and thus yielded itself to the rhythm of the song, it 
served its purpose as well as anything. For these 
words were not sung in contemplation of the heavenly 
life, but rather in order that the monotonous, but pleas- 
ing rhythm might induce a passive state of mind ; one 
more readily responsive to the Spirit. But the condi- 
tions created made one more susceptible to the influ- 



ence of the "spirit of the crowd" than to the Holy 
Spirit. This may seem to you like light talk. I hasten 
to assure you I am in dead earnest, and speak very 
seriously, and not without purpose. I believe that 
emotion has a large place in religion. But so has in- 
tellect and the will and the conscience. I believe in 
conversion, that when one discovers he is going wrong 
he should turn about and go the other way. This ex- 
perience will be accompanied by feeling, but it can not 
be a genuine, all-inclusive, lasting experience without 
knowledge and purpose. I believe in song as an instru- 
ment of divine grace to save men. I would not be 
understood to speak lightly or disparagingly of these 
things. Often has a truth been sung into the heart 
and there it has awakened a response. The song 
carried a seed-truth, and by awakening the feelings it 
also prepared the seed-bed which assured its speedy 
germination and healthy growth. Emotion became the 
child of truth and the mother of duty. 

I am sure nothing can stir the emotions as can a 
consciousness of God, and the realization of the fact 
that our life is hid with Christ in God. But such 
emotions will come from some intellectual conception 
of the character of God, and will bear fruit in conduct. 

Of course not all singing will move to immediate 
action, but it may stimulate helpful contemplation. In 
either case the tune, as well as the words, is important 
and should be given consideration. I am sure my lack 
of appreciation of the revival song from which I have 
just quoted is due partly to the fact that the jingle of 
the tune does not jibe with the sublimity of the theme. 
Of course the picture of the heavenly city is un-social 
and sensuous to a certain degree. We have no other 
way of picturing heaven, however, except in material 

i39 



terms, and I never appreciated more than I do now that 
old song which I have loved from childhood. 

"I will sing you a song 

Of that beautiful land, 

The far-away home of the soul, 

Where no storms ever beat 

On the glittering strand, 

While the years of eternity roll." 

There is room for thought expansion and medi- 
tative reflection in that old hymn, and the tune is no 
less sublime than the words. 

I have brought you a bit of my personal experi- 
ence. Now let us go back in history for a chapter 
from our own religious ancestors that bears upon this 
same point. Many of the dissenters of England in the 
seventeenth century did not believe in the use of music 
in worship, and banished all singing from religious 
services. The logic of their position is easily under- 
stood when we recall the dead formality of the rit- 
ualistic service of those days. These non-conformists 
experienced and taught a spiritual Christianity. And 
they could have no patience with mere formalism. The 
elaborate ritual of the Establishment seemed to these 
Independents to be but empty form, and the monot- 
onous intoning of the litany a hollow performance. So 
they refused to include singing in their program of 
public worship, lest some one might join in the hymn 
who was not in spirit and in harmony with the senti- 
ment of the song. They, gradually perhaps, began to 
realize that hymn singing was not only consonant with 
evangelical Christianity, but could be so engaged in as 
to enrich religious worship and to promote piety. 

There is an interesting incident growing out of 
this situation which took place in the latter part of the 

140 



century. In a certain Baptist congregation there were 
those who believed in hymn singing and others who did 
not. 'How to adjust the worship to the spiritual de- 
mands of both elements in the church became a prob- 
lem. It was finally decided to sing one hymn, but to 
wait until after the closing prayer, in order that those 
who did not believe in singing might "go freely forth." 
The latter faction could not continue to fellowship 
hymn-singing Christians, however, and soon withdrew, 
forming a church in which no such heresy was tol- 
erated. 

As the use of hymns increased among the non- 
conformist and more evangelical churches there arose 
an evident and conscious need for hymns suited to the 
use of these free congregations. The period from this 
time on for a hundred years is the most prolific hymn- 
writing century of all Christian history, and many of 
the hymns we sing today had their origin during this 
time. The pastor of the Baptist church to which I 
have just referred, Benjamin Keach, and who was re- 
sponsible for the innovation, was the author of a hymn 
book which was published in 1691. None of Reach's 
hymns are in common use today, however. 

One of the earliest as well as one of the most 
eminent hymn writers was a Seventh Day Baptist, the 
scholarly Joseph Stennett, who published his first 
volume of hymns in 1697. Stennett's life reads like 
a romance. He was the son of a Seventh Day Baptist 
minister, and he early joined his father's church and 
later succeeded him as pastor of a Seventh Day Bap- 
tist church in London. He married the daughter of a 
French Protestant refugee. His ability was recog- 
nized by the Courts of William and Anne. He wrote 
a version of Solomon's Song and was requested to 

141 



revise the English version of the Psalms. Dr. Sharp, 
Archbishop of York, referring to this proposition, said 
he had "heard such a character of Mr. Stennett not 
only for his skill in poetry, but likewise in the Hebrew 
tongue, that he thought no man more fit for that work 
than he." Mr. Stennett was the father of two sons 
who became ministers, and was the grandfather of 
Samuel Stennett, who was a minister and hymn writer. 
Joseph Stennett is the author of "Another six days' 
work is done, another Sabbath has begun," — a hymn 
sung in many churches today on Sunday morning, but 
which was written by a Sabbath-keeping Baptist and 
for use on the Sabbath Day. 

Through Isaac Watts hymn singing gained slowly, 
not coming into general use for a century. In the 
publications of the Baptist Historical Society for 1910 
there is this statement concerning .Watts: "A young 
Independent minister in London, named Isaac Watts, 
wrote a few hymns into one of which he 'conveyed' 
several verses of Stennett's." It seems therefore that 
Isaac Watts, our first great hymn writer, received his 
inspiration from Joseph Stennett, after whose hymns 
his own were modeled. In view of this fact and in 
view of the fact that many of Stennett's hymns are 
found in our hymn books today, the name of Stennett 
may well claim a place of pre-eminence in the pioneer 
history of modern hymnology. 

The Independents of England revolted from the 
forms of worship and declared against singing, refus- 
ing to practice it in religious assembly lest it should 
be engaged in by those who were not sincere. But 
music like religion itself, being native to the normal 
human soul, could not long be separated from religious 
worship. Out of this effort to harmonize the worship 

142 



of song with evangelical Christianity developed our 
great hymn writers and the modern hymns sung in all 
evangelical churches. It is in our hymn singing that 
all denominational lines are obliterated and today we 
sing with the Methodist, "Jesus, Lover of my soul," 
and with the Episcopalian, "Rock of Ages, cleft for 
me," and with a Lutheran, "A Mighty Fortress is our 
God," and with a Congregationalist, "I love Thy King- 
dom, Lord," and with a Presbyterian, "Jesus, and shall 
it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of Thee?" and with 
a Unitarian, "In the Cross of Christ I glory," and with 
a Roman Catholic, "Lead, kindly Light," and with a 
Baptist, "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Chris- 
tian love," and with a Seventh Day Baptist, "Majestic 
sweetness sits enthroned upon the Saviour's brow." 

It is the very genius of the Bible that it is a divine 
book because it is so human. It is a record of human 
experiences in which is reflected our own. My per- 
sonal experience, I take it, is not unlike your own. 
And the experience of our denominational forbears, in 
the stormy days of the English Reformation and the 
period immediately following, is common to that of 
every generation that makes progress. And we find 
captive Israel in similar straits because they can not 
tune their emotions to suit their songs. There is 
nothing more trying or difficult, but no experience more 
necessary of adjustment, if we are to preserve our 
integrity and enjoy a satisfactory religious life. "How 
shall we sing Jehovah's song in a foreign land ?" was a 
soul-cry whose character and depths gave evidence of 
the mighty struggle taking place in the hearts of these 
alien subjects of idolatrous Babylon. They were 
asked to sing one of the songs of Zion when they were 
far removed from that holy hill, and from the sacred 

143 



association of the temple whose courts were wont to 
resound with their songs of praise. How could they 
sing Jehovah's songs while forcibly held in a land that 
was not Jehovah's? Every sentiment of their souls 
rebelled at the suggestion, and they hanged their harps 
on the willow trees and sat down, and refused to sing. 
Their emotions forbade their singing Jehovah's songs. 
If they were to sing at all in their present mood it must 
be something other than the songs of Zion. So in 
harmony with their emotions they break forth in an 
imprecatory psalm against their captors. 

"O daughter of Babylon that art to be destroyed. 
Happy shall be he, that rewardeth thee 
As thou hast served us. 

Happy shall be he, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones 
against a rock." 

Some one has said that their first attempt to sing 
resulted in a discord. It is a discord on our ears, 
but it harmonizes perfectly with their own feelings, 
and it was the only song they could sing consistently 
and with spirit. We can not approve their song, but 
the adjustment had to be made in their thinking before 
the proper emotions could be aroused for singing the 
songs of Zion. To have sung Jehovah's song under 
the circumstances, and for the entertainment of their f 
captors, would^have been to betray a shallowness of 
character of which these Jews were not capable. Their 
conception of God was too narrow, but their desire to 
be consistent with themselves and be loyal to the best 
religious experiences of the past saved them from the 
failure of conformity. History has proven that Israel 
profited by her experience in Babylon in that it gave 
her a wider religious horizon. And no doubt they 
were later able to sing Jehovah's song even in a foreign 

144 



land, because they learned through trial that their God 
was not subject to geographical boundaries and that 
no land can be foreign to him when the heart is right. 
This refusal to attempt to sing the songs of Zion con- 
trary to their feelings, resulted in a readjustment of 
their conception of God. A forward step was then 
taken in the upward climb of the race because they 
held emotion to be the child of truth and the mother 
of duty. Since they did not violate their feelings, but 
struggled to retain their religious emotions the latter 
became potent factors in bringing about a larger life 
for themselves and for the race. 

An experience may be a foreign land to us because 
we have not adjusted ourselves to the circumstances. 
For instance it may be a great sorrow we are passing 
through, and we can not sing Jehovah's song. We 
shall find God more precious however, and the songs 
of Zion will be sung with a deeper appreciation, as we 
realize that even in sorrow the Lord does not forsake. 
Or our foreign land may be one in which it was never 
meant that we should sojourn. It may be the land of 
worldly pleasures or of selfish gain. Jehovah's song 
can not be sung with feeling, and we should hasten to 
forsake the forbidden territory, and get back where the 
songs of Zion can be sung with joy and appreciation. 
There are people today who see no inconsistency in 
singing Jehovah's song in a foreign land and it is an 
indication of shallowness of character. What I mean 
is they feel no shock of the emotions when engaging 
in something which is not consistent with a wholesome 
Christian faith and life. There are other natures deep 
and strong who quickly feel the choking grip of a 
foreign atmosphere. They can not sing Jehovah's 
songs, and they immediately proceed to change the 

145 



atmosphere or hasten back to God's country ; and like 
Israel of old they usually find that it is not a question 
of geography. 

With the introduction of musical instruments of 
various kinds in every home, and with the increased 
number of accomplished players, I wonder if singing, 
engaged in by the family or the social group, holds its 
rightful place in our home life. Some of my most 
helpful memories are associated with the winter Sab- 
bath afternoons. After dinner mother would say to 
father or to one of us boys, "Make a fire in the other 
room and let us go over there and sit a while." The 
fire would be built and when the "other room," which 
was not dignified with the name of parlor, was com- 
fortable we all crossed the hall to the room where the 
old organ was, and one of the exercises of the after- 
noon was the singing of the old hymns in which the 
family joined, father's and mother's voices being heard 
along with the children's. I would give a good deal 
today for one hour in that family circle, and I would 
not sell the memory of it for gold. 

When we think of Heaven we are likely to picture 
to ourselves angel choirs leading the multitude in sing- 
ing the songs of redemption, and it is a glorious and 
inspiring picture. I am sure the associations of the 
hosts of the redeemed will be congenial and blessed. 
But Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many abid- 
ing places," and I wonder if it may not be consistent 
with our best knowledge of revelation to fancy that in 
Heaven there may be abiding places to which families 
may withdraw occasionally during the multiplied mil- 
lenniums of eternity. Perhaps our mothers are wait- 
ing there in "the other room," bathed in the Sabbath 
peace of Paradise, for us to "come over and sit 

146 



awhile." I am wondering, too, with all the harps of 
gold and the great orchestras to lead the praise of the 
celestial throngs, if there may not be in some of these 
rooms reed organs around which smaller groups gather 
once in a while. I am sure the joys of eternity will 
be increased by the memory of such hours on earth 
which give us a foretaste of heavenly bliss. 

If the National Week of Song helps us to sing 
more, then those who are responsible for its appoint- 
ment will have done a great service for this generation. 

Let us here make two resolves. First, let us 
resolve that we will give more time to singing, espe- 
cially in the home. Parents, sing with your children 
and encourage them to sing with you. Young people, 
with the multitude of interests that claim your time, 
save one hour each week at least for family singing. 
Sing the songs father and mother enjoy, and have 
them join in. It will help to preserve their youth and 
will become to you a lifetime memory the most 
precious. 

In the second place, let us resolve to sing only the 
best hymns and the worth-while songs. Life is too 
short, time is too precious, and the power of song is 
too potent for us to be slack in this matter. 



147 



JSobiltsittg ($ur f omig IJrople for a 
World ©rtaia 



NORTONVILLE, KAN. 

CONFERENCE 

AUGUST 20, 1918 



MOBILIZING OUR YOUNG PEOPLE FOR A 
WORLD CRISIS 

A LREADY our young people are being mobilized 
■** for a world crisis. The crisis is upon us and the 
Government is entering our homes and schools and 
churches and is claiming our young men in order to 
meet it. The Government is not only taking our 
young men from their ordinary vocations, but it de- 
termines what kind of training they shall receive to 
prepare them for the service required. This mobiliza- 
tion includes the young women also. While sojourn- 
ing in New York last spring I observed that conduc- 
torettes were receiving the street car fares. And in a 
patriotic demonstration in Salem recently, conspicuous 
among the paraders were a number of farmerettes. 
How many of our girls have learned to knit, and can, 
and conserve, in order to be able to render a practical 
service in this crisis. And we have just closed a drive 
for student nurses, with an urgent call for volunteers 
for this necessary service. 

Our young people are being mobilized. And the 
duty of the church would seem to be to accept the 
program as it is presented, stiffen the character of her 
young people who are devoting themselves to the com- 
mon cause, and strengthen the morale of those already 
mobilized for a crisis sufficiently grave to give us all 
concern, and great enough to tax all our powers. 

But the crisis which we now face, and which we 
are trying to meet with religious devotion, will pre- 
cipitate another, fraught with greater difficulties, and 

151 



to be followed by profounder consequences. The 
issues will be more complex and the forces more subtle 
in the after-the-war situation. And out of these the 
present generation of young people must bring a new 
Christian civilization. It is too early to predict just 
what the new conditions following the war will be, or 
what will be the specific demands upon those who are 
left to take up the new duties. The changes of the 
war, the new human relationships which it will require, 
the different modes of working and thinking, can not 
be foretold. General Haygood of the United States 
Army said in France, "We shall stay here until the 
Allies win the war. Then we shall go back, empty- 
handed, unless, perhaps, we take back our dead." This 
is true so far as territory or property or any material 
possession is concerned. But there is something 
which our victorious armies will bring back. "Free- 
dom?" Yes. "Liberty?" Yes. "Peace?" Thank 
God, yes. But let us not forget also the new responsi- 
bilities for world conditions that will then rest upon 
us. In entering this war, we have not only pledged 
ourselves to stay in the fight till it's over over there, 
but upon us will rest new obligations and new duties 
when it is over. Just because we can not now de- 
termine the specific character of the service to be ren- 
dered, the duty is the more urgent to prepare to meet 
whatever comes with brave hearts, clear heads, and 
strong bodies. Our Government is taking the young 
men who are physically fit and is training them in the 
art of destruction, which calls for mass movements 
and concert of action. There are by-products of such 
training that will be serviceable in reconstruction days, 
but the primary principles of war preparation are not 
the same as those required for the rehabilitation of the 

152 



world, and the building up of the kingdom of right- 
eousness. 

I am not sure but that the proposed military train- 
ing in our colleges will be a better equipment of our 
young men for the pursuits of peace than our system 
of athletics has been. That system of athletics can 
not be considered perfect as a means of physical train- 
ing by which the majority of the students get their 
exercise on the bleachers, or by yelling themselves 
hoarse on the side lines. And even those who partici- 
pate in extreme athletics which is fostered by many 
modern colleges do not receive a normal physical de- 
velopment. Certain muscles are over-developed while 
others are never brought into action. A weak heart 
and a swelled head are prevailing diseases among suc- 
cessful athletes. 

Military training makes for democracy also, while 
modern school athletics does not. But when credit 
has been given for all the gains for peaceful times that 
will accrue to our young men in time of war, there will 
be much that will attach itself to our lives that will 
have to be shaken off. 

Society must not only be organized on a peace 
basis, following the strenuous and whole-hearted giv- 
ing of ourselves to the prosecution of the war. But 
the close of the present conflict will furnish the world's 
opportunity to break the fetters of tradition and of 
custom that have bound it in the past, and to bring in 
the new order, even the brotherhood of man. It was 
wise and timely advice that Lloyd George gave to a 
deputation that came to see him regarding the status of 
labor after the war: 

"Don't always be thinking of getting back to 

i53 



where you were before the war. Get a really new 
world. 

"I firmly believe that what is known as the after-the- 
war settlement will direct the destinies of all classes 
for generations to come. I believe the settlement 
after the war will succeed in proportion to its audacity. 
The readier we are to cut away from the past, the 
better we are likely to succeed. Think out new ways, 
new methods, of dealing with old problems. 

"I hope no class will be harking back to the pre- 
war conditions. If every class insists on doing that, 
then God help this country. Get a new world." 

While we can not foresee what the conditions will 
be, of these three things we may be certain : ( I ) They 
will be different; (2) They will be important; and 
(3) They will be urgent. 

Conditions will be different. They can not be 
the same as now. They must not be what they were 
before. If conditions are to be better following the 
Great War, then people must be better. "Stronger?" 
Perhaps. "Wiser?" That depends upon what you 
mean. But, better. Here there can be no question 
or doubt. We must be less self-centered, and more 
faithful in our service for others. We must be gov- 
erned by the Golden Rule, and not by the rule of gold. 

During the Red Cross drive last spring there was 
conspicuous in all the thoroughfares of New York the 
words of President Wilson, "Give till it hurts." As 
I was coming down Broadway one day meditating 
upon the matter, I ran into another Red Cross poster. 
This one advertised a ball at the Waldorf-Astoria, 
where for five dollars you could see "a million dollars' 
worth of gowns and twenty million dollars' worth of 
jewelry." And the five dollars which you gave for 

154 



this privilege would go to the Red Cross. Such was 
the method of the vanity-fed, useless members of 
New York's high society to support the cause for 
which we had been asked to make a sacrifice. 

The other day I was in a barber shop in Salem, 
waiting for my turn. The subject of conversation was 
the recent arrest of a young man for speeding through 
town in his automobile. They were condemning the 
one who reported him to the authorities, and one man 
gave proud expression to this sentiment, and in these 
words, "I'm not going to report on any one as long as 
he doesn't hurt anything of mine." I call that selfish- 
ness, unadulterated and damnable. And these two 
incidents serve to illustrate some of the changes that 
must be brought about. As long as there are people 
who are content to express their interest in the saving 
of life and the alleviation of human suffering by ex- 
hibiting to the public, at a price, their rich jewelry and 
their expensive but not too abundant clothing, that 
long is the world unsafe, not only for democracy, but 
democracy itself is impotent. 

As long as the barber shops of the country, the 
centers of male gossip, echo such selfish sentiment as 
was the case in the one to which I have referred, that 
long will unbrotherliness prosper and selfishness be at 
a premium. 

The war is giving us a different world. It is giving 
us the opportunity to make a better world. If it is to 
be a better world, we must be better and bigger ; more 
unselfish, truer to the ideals of Jesus. 

The conditions following the war will be important 
because they will be so far-reaching. Never in the 
history of the world has the whole race of man been 
so unanimously involved in anything as it is now in 

i55 



this Great War. It would seem the last struggle is 
on between autocracy and democracy, between privi- 
lege and brotherhood. These ideals and interests have 
opposed each other on many a former battle field, but 
never before has the whole world been brought into 
the struggle. Therefore, the crisis which is to be met 
when the Teutonic menace has been removed, demands 
wisdom and courage of the highest type, but requires 
above everything else, instinctive knowledge of the 
purpose of God, and consecrated devotion to the com- 
mon interests of humanity. And urgent will be the 
after-the-war crisis because of what Lloyd-George 
calls the molten state of society when peace shall have 
been declared. Trends will be given to life that will 
lead far into the future. Social forms will be speedily 
fixed that will determine the character of human rela- 
tionships perhaps for generations. The problems 
which must be solved can not wait. They must be 
met speedily, and dealt with faithfully, and with rare 
comprehension. 

But I must hasten. What shall I say to our young 
people who must face this new situation, so important 
and urgent? How shall they prepare to meet it? 

I want to say two things ; and after that, a third. 
The first thing of the two is. This is an individual 
problem, a question of personal attitude and character. 
The social worker who preaches the obliteration of 
self-hood, the elimination of the individual for the 
sake of the social order, is omitting the primary ele- 
ment in stable social life. More than anything else to- 
day, and for the future, the world needs men and 
women. It needs men who stand four-square, con- 
spicuous, if you please, for their personal integrity, for 
their love of righteousness, and for their sincere devo- 

156 



tion to the common good. It needs women who seek 
not to exploit their physical charms, but who through 
generous and devoted service in some sphere of human 
need, develop that womanly grace which is their crown- 
ing personal charm. Let each one, therefore, look 
well to the ordering of his own life, that he may bring 
to whatever situation awaits his coming, a character, 
full and rounded, fit to tackle any job that needs doing. 

My second thought is this, We are coming upon 
a time when there is scarcely any limit to the influence 
that may radiate from a strong personality. A prac- 
tical psychology may be awakening in us an apprecia- 
tion of the pervasive influence of personality. We 
may be emerging from a conception of the cosmos 
which would make of it a machine to grind all of 
humanity's aspirations and hopes into an impersonal 
spiritual mass. But there is being removed barriers, 
also, that hitherto have hindered the personal relation- 
ships which would make widely effective our ideals and 
purposes. National lines are being crossed in a com- 
mon purpose, racial barriers are being literally shot 
to pieces, and denominational fences are having the 
top rails kicked off at least. Today what you think, 
and what you do, and what you say, has a world- 
bearing ; and a new meaning not known before attaches 
to every utterance and to every movement of the most 
inconspicuous person. 

The value of personality in the new world condi- 
tions which are now in the making, and the influence of 
personal character upon the problems that will appear, 
help us not only to feel our own responsibility, and to 
see our opportunity, but they show us the starting place 
in our preparation to meet the crisis which must come. 
And this brings me to my last thought. The mobiliza- 

iS7 



tion of our young people for a world crisis such as can 
be met only by the co-operation of men and women of 
strong character, and with a world-vision, can be 
brought about under but one leadership: Jesus. It 
hardly seems appropriate to associate a military term 
with that gentle Name. But by whatever figure or 
language you seek to express it, I wish I might be able 
to speak in a language that could be understood, and 
to proclaim in a voice that could be heard above the 
noise of this war: The only way to heal the ills of 
humanity, and to bring in the reign of righteousness 
and peace, is by a self-surrender to Jesus Christ, and 
by the consecration of the life thus cleansed and 
strengthened, to the service of God's other children. 

Are man-made tracks being obliterated? Turn 
your face heavenward ; there are always the stars. No 
paroxysms of earth can ever shake the facts of God. 
The fact of Christ and his salvation and his glorious 
redemptive work in time, nothing can affect. In this 
time of perplexity and strain clinch your attachment to 
Jesus Christ, until you Can say with the poet : 

"If Jesus Christ is man — 

And only man — I say 
Then of all mankind T will cleave to him, 

And to him will I cleave alway. 

"If Jesus Christ is God — 

And the only God— I swear 
I will follow him through heaven and hell, 

The earth, the sea, the air." 

I wonder if Seventh Day Baptist young people 
appreciate their heritage as Sabbath-keepers ; and 
realize the place which the Sabbath may take in fitting 
them to meet life's problems, and to render the min- 
istry which the world needs? I fear many do not. 

i*8 



For I have seen some of them going out into the world 
nattered by its promises, and to gain popularity and 
success, but turning their backs upon that which had 
made all this possible. Early brought to the foot of 
the Cross, lovingly and patiently led in the way of 
obedience to Christ, many have sold their birthright 
for a mess of pottage. Some have received not even 
that. But it matters not that some have received a 
full mess, it was only pottage, of the abundance of 
which a man's life doth not consist. The Holy Sab- 
bath, the sacred gift of divine blessing, is often the 
thing over which they have stumbled. Or at least a 
disregard for the Holy Day is one of the first evidences 
of disloyalty and unfaith. No matter how far one 
travels, or where he goes, once every week the setting 
sun becomes a trial of faith and a test of obedience. 
The Sabbath furnishes, therefore, a frequent and reg- 
ular opportunity to measure our devotion to Christ, 
as well as a means of deepening that devotion. Sab- 
bath-keeping, spiritual and free, is an asset to any 
life, and will strengthen our young people to meet 
every personal temptation and problem, and will make 
them mighty according to their opportunity in the com- 
ing world crisis. 

"And fierce though the fiends may fight, 
And long though the angels hide, 

I know that truth and right 
Have the universe on their side." 



159 



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